[SOLVED] Updated kernel refuses to boot

[firstnomad]

I just reinstalled LMDE on my Asus 1201n a couple days ago and I've been busy so I hadn't been able to fully update it until last night. Installed nvidia drivers, wireless drivers, ran apt-get update + upgrade, aptitude update + upgrade, and ran the graphical updater because it was still telling me I had stuff to install.

It was at kernel 2.6.32-5-amd64, when i rebooted it was updated to 2.6.38-2-amd64. I booted into the new kernel, and it displayed the boot text, but then it kicked out to a blank screen. Typing did not work, and I had to hit the power button. It began the shutdown process and succeeded. This has happened three times.

Pertinent information:
One of the large operations I did just before the update was using a LiveUSB to repartition my hard drive. I had an x86 LMDE installation to get rid of, and I relocated the start of the x64 boot partition to the start of the drive. It now takes up the entire hard drive, except for the swap space.

I removed the nouveau drivers and installed the Nvidia drivers. They work properly under the 2.6.32-5-amd64 kernel. I know I will have to reinstall the driver on the new kernel if I ever get it running.

I can still boot into the 2.6.32-5-amd64 kernel with no problems. But I'd rather not have to wait until LMDE 11 comes out and I reinstall to be able to update my kernel.


EDIT: got it running. i booted into the old kernel today and decided to run apt-get dist-upgrade again, just to see what would happen. I got a couple packages, but what was interesting was that it was going to try to uninstall the nvidia driver package, which was odd since I installed it from nvidia, not from the package manager. Anyway, I ran it, and booted into the new kernel. Voila, there's a command prompt. I ran the nvidia driver installer again, and as soon as the install was finished it kicked me to the gnome login screen. very happy.

[MaddogF16]

Just on the info side, there's a difference of updating with the graphical updater provided by Mint and using apt-get. The graphical is set to only update packages based on a numbering system that determines the level of possible risk to your install, where as apt-get just finds all updates whether risky or not. A kernel update is always a risk and takes lots of testing by the MInt devs to ever become a level 3 or lower risk.

That being said, have you tried booting into the safe boot option for the .38 kernel? You may need to go the vga=vesa boot cheat to get to a desktop where you can work on the driver issue. I was lucky and run the .38 kernel with nvidia drivers and don't have an issue.

When the kernel package was installing did you expand the terminal window to watch for any errors as it built the module for the kernel? I always open the terminal window to watch for any errors when I install packages.

[rizzeh]

It seems the new kernel boots but you need to install/compile graphics module for new kernel.
Have you tried alt-ctr-F1 at blank screen to switch to another tty?
You might want to try http://smxi.org/ script to help you with kernel and drivers install.

[linuxdad]

I am running julia modified repository up to katya, when booting 2.6.38-2 the GDM welcome screen never pops up but when running 2.6.35-8 all is well. New kernels have fun problems

[firstnomad]

Just on the info side, there's a difference of updating with the graphical updater provided by Mint and using apt-get. The graphical is set to only update packages based on a numbering system that determines the level of possible risk to your install, where as apt-get just finds all updates whether risky or not. A kernel update is always a risk and takes lots of testing by the MInt devs to ever become a level 3 or lower risk.

That being said, have you tried booting into the safe boot option for the .38 kernel? You may need to go the vga=vesa boot cheat to get to a desktop where you can work on the driver issue. I was lucky and run the .38 kernel with nvidia drivers and don't have an issue.

When the kernel package was installing did you expand the terminal window to watch for any errors as it built the module for the kernel? I always open the terminal window to watch for any errors when I install packages.

yeah, but if you run apt-get shouldn't the graphical updater show no new updates since you supposedly got everything, regardless of the risk level? Mine didn't. And yes, I did watch the terminal window up to and through building the module for the kernel. There were some updates where I had to confirm changes in packages where there were discrepancies between my files and the new files... but none of those had anything to do with the new kernel.