KDM doesn't start

[Phlaser]

I've been trying to boot Mint KDE mini on my rig but the live cd hangs when it gets to booting the GUI. At the part where it should do the nice little graphical initialization of the desktop (the one where the icons light up one after another), I get hung up in a verbose description of what should be happening under the nice little initialization screen. The hang up takes forever to get to (the linuxmint loading screen takes ages for some reason) and this is what I get:

Loading please wait...
Linux mint 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Sun OCT 14 23:05:12 GMT 2007 i686

The programs included with the Ubuntu system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Ubuntu comes iwth ABSOLUTELY NO WRRANTY, to the extent permitted by
applicable law.
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

Q: What's the difference between a Mac and an Etch-a-Sketch?
A: You don't have to shake the Mac to clear the screen.
mint@mint:~$ * Reloading /etc/samba/smb.conf...

And thats where it hangs up. Btw that little joke part in the verbose readout is different each time I try it.
When booting under the safe graphic mode I get stuck on a screen that looks like the following:

Starting K Display Manager: kdm.
* Startomg Common Unix Printing System: cupsd
xserver -xorg postinst warning: overwriting possibly customized configuration file: backup in /etc/xorg.confg.20080308191714
* Starting Samba daemons
* Starting Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Daemon avahi-daemon
* Starting DHCP D-Bus daemon dhcdbd
* Starting Bluetooth services
* Starting power management daemon powersaved
FATAL: Error inserting speedstep_centrino (/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/speedstep-centrino.ko): No such device

* Starting deferred execution scheduler atd
* Starting periodic command schedular crond
* Checking battery state
* Running local boot scripts (/etc/rc.local)

And thats where it stops. It just hangs there. I know the problem isn't with the media because I've been able to boot it on my laptop. I'm thinking it's probably got to do with some hardware compatibility but I just wanted to be sure. My rig looks like the following:

AMD AthlonX2 4600
1 gig of OCZ Ram
nVidia 8800GT
80gb WD IDE drive + 320 WD SATA drive

I feel like it might be the 64 bit processor, but I was under the impression that 64 bit processors could run 32 bit distros without a problem. Any help would be mightily appreciated.

[Husse]

FATAL: Error inserting speedstep_centrino (/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/speedstep-centrino.ko): No such device

And you have an AMD cpu....
64 bit processor and 32 bit programs are quite OK - I've got an Athlon 64 3700+
I would not care for that error, but it's marked fatal...
If we suppose things work anyhow - have you tried "Safe graphics mode"?

[MagnusB]

FATAL: Error inserting speedstep_centrino (/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/speedstep-centrino.ko): No such device

And you have an AMD cpu....
64 bit processor and 32 bit programs are quite OK - I've got an Athlon 64 3700+
I would not care for that error, but it's marked fatal...
If we suppose things work anyhow - have you tried "Safe graphics mode"?

That is in safe graphics mode. The joke thing is fortunes, always come when a shell is started. And 64 bits CPU runs 32 just fine. Is this just limited to KDE?

[Phlaser]

I'll let you know soon as I try the main edition.

[Phlaser]

So I tried the main version of mint and I'm not able to boot to the gui. I'm actually getting the same problem as someone else is on this board a few topics up; it gets hung up at /etc/rc.local. This problem needs to be addressed in my opinion. The only thing I see that our two systems have in common by the way, is that we both have 64 bit amd processors.

[MagnusB]

rc.local does not do anything per default, it is just a boot script that can be edited manually. I am guessing that it is an issue with X, somehow. Did you try to check the md5sum of the ISO, and burning at slow speeds? I also have an Athlon 64 X2 (not sure what specific, as I don't have that computer in front of me right now) and Mint runs just fine on that. Sorry, but I am stomped, I have no idea what could be causing this. Try looking at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=602757

[Phlaser]

Well as I said earlier, the same disc works perfectly on my laptop. So is there nobody that can help out with this? I was looking forward to using mint but if I can't then so be it.

[christos.hellas]

i am having the same issue but not with AMD 64...i have a simple pentium 4 in an Acer notebook...check here...
http://linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=11015

[McLovin]

FATAL: Error inserting speedstep_centrino (/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/speedstep-centrino.ko): No such device

this is confusing me, if you have an Athelon 64, why would the system be trying to do anything with centrino, as that is all intel, that should not be there, not to mention you're running a desktop pc, right? So it is correct in saying that that device doesn't exist. It looks like your system is trying to start something it shouldn't be, though I'm not sure how to fix this.

[Yogi_8oD]

I just tried Linux Mint 4.0 for the first time, and got the same type of error when running the live CD on my desktop system. Booting ends with:

mint@mint:~$ * Reloading /etc/samba/smb.conf...

When I press Enter, I'm left at the console prompt, and can use it in this basic state, but it appears that the usual process was interrupted.

My system configuration is: Supermicro P8SCT motherboard, Intel P4 3GHz CPU, 2 GB DDR2 RAM, NVidia e-GeForce 6200 256 MB DDR2 PCI graphics card.

I get the same result when I attempt to boot up in safe graphics mode. I also tried removing the NVidia graphics card, but had the same result with the on board graphics.

I wanted to test the live CD version before committing to installing it to the HDD along side the preexisting Windows XP. I've been wanting to switch to Linux on this machine, and Linux Mint looks like it has a great list of features that I'm excited to try. I'm comfortable with command lines, and have used UNIX/Linux in the past.

/var/log/Xorg.0.log displays a number of errors and warnings such as:
(EE) GARTInit: Unable to open /dev/agpgart (No such file or directory)
(WW) intel(0): /dev/agpgart is either not available, or no memory is available for allocation. Using pre-allocated memory only.
(EE) intel(0): Failed to allocate framebuffer. Is your VideoRAM set too low?
(EE) intel(0): Couldn't allocate video memory
Fatal server error:
AddScreen/ScreenInit failed for driver 0

I plan to try a few things, but if anyone has any good suggestions, I'd be happy to hear from you. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

[Yogi_8oD]

Linux Mint KDE Startup Problem Solved

Most of what I cover here is what worked for me, but may not work for you depending on the source of your issue. My problem turned out to be a lack of immediate driver support for my NVidia card. This solution most directly applies to both NVidia and ATI video cards. Most of this information is distilled from Linux Mint's helpful:

http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php/Troubleshooting_your_Live_CD

Boot into Recovery mode from the Linux Mint Live CD by replacing "quiet splash --" with "ro single", which provides a command prompt part way trough the boot, in which to edit xorg.conf using nano, vi, or your preferred text editor, i.e.:

Code: Select all

vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

And under the Section "Device", replace the Driver "intel" with "vesa", and in the same section, comment out the BusID line (type a # at the beginning of the line) then save changes and quit the editor. From the command prompt, type exit to reboot.

This should eventually land you in KDE with the support of the minimalist vesa driver. You may get an error as I did from the KDE Daemon, with the KDE Crash Handler dialog stating:

The application KDE Daemon (kded) crashed and caused the signal 11 (SIGSEGV)

Just close this message. KDE is hopefully now running from the Live CD, with the Install icon displayed. If so, on we go... Double click the Install icon to lauch the installer.

After answering some basic questions regarding your local settings, next comes Prepare Partitions. Again, see the helpful section How_to_partition from Linux Mint Live CD Troubleshooting article mentioned above. If you have another OS pre-installed, and you're planning to dual boot, then you might want to consider backing up any important data before proceding, as repartitioning, while normally safe, can lead to lost data if something goes wrong.

I resized a modest 80 GB partition /dev/sda1 currently used for XP (25.6 used) to 40 GB. I then divided the remaining space into:

Code: Select all

/dev/hda1 -- /             8 GB root for LinuxMint
/dev/hda3 -- /home         30 GM
/dev/hda4 -- swap          2 GB

I then rebooted into recovery mode from the Grub menu to make the same changes as were needed before in the live CD to /etc/X11/xorg.conf, then exited again to come back to the KDE login. Once logged in, KDE presented the same kded crash message as before, but remained active.

I then launched Firefox to download the latest Envy Legacy package, a very handy NVidia and ATI video driver finder/builder for Linux. It's available from:

http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

Double-click on the downloaded package to select envy and install it. When I tried to run Envy from the Mint applications menu, it complained about a missing dependent package: dkms, available from:

http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml

Or even easier, just use KPackage, pick dkms from the list, and choose Install.

Start Envy again, and select Install Nvidia driver (or ATI if that is your type), then wait a few minutes for it to complete its process of downloading and building all dependencies. When done, it offers to automatically configure xorg.conf, which I permitted.

For me, it then rebooted unexpectedly, apparently in Recovery mode. I checked xorg.conf only to find it reverted to the original (at least in terms of the Device section). When I tried to change this, this action was prevented due to its read-only status. I rebooted to see if anything had changed, and it hadn't, so I re-edited xorg.conf as root through: sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

This got me back into a KDE session, where I reran Envy. This time it completed successfully, and prompted for a reboot, which I accepted. This time KDE successfully loaded and the NVidia driver was selected in xorg.conf, and running with much better presentation than in the previous vesa mode.

Whew, if you're still with me, congratulations - Linux Mint is up and running at last!

[Husse]

I recommend starting a new topic instead of continuing an old one. Why?
Your post may be completely unnoticed and no help may come to you. I click "View your posts" normally at least once a day so I found your post but that may not be the case for everyone
I am glad that some of my wiki topics were helpful (oh yes - I've written as much there as here )

[Yogi_8oD]

I recommend starting a new topic instead of continuing an old one. Why?
Your post may be completely unnoticed and no help may come to you. I click "View your posts" normally at least once a day so I found your post but that may not be the case for everyone
I am glad that some of my wiki topics were helpful (oh yes - I've written as much there as here )

Thanks for your suggestion Husse. I've reposted this as a new article under Installation & Boot for better visibility.