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[SOLVED] HP mini netbook freezes after succesfull install

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 4:00 am
by bartbar
Hello,
I just installed Linux Mint 13 alongside Windows 7 Starter on a new HP Mini 200-4200sb. The live dvd worked perfectly, the install worked perfectly, but when I clicked on "restart" it froze. I pushed the off-button a few seconds to shut it off manually and restarted. Grub appeared fine with Linux Mint and Windows in it, but when I start Linux it shows a blank (black) screen and freezes. Same thing with Linux recovery mode, well almost: it shows to lines of text, those disappear, and then freeze.

I can however boot from DVD and choose "boot from local disk" (I press enter during the countdown and then this option appears). So I'm writing this from Mint installed on the netbook, but I can't get to it without passing by the live DVD.

Can anyone help please?

Many thanks in advance...

(P.S. For those interested, in order to be able to install Mint alongside Windows, I had to start Gparted from the live DVD and delete the "HP Tools" partition because apparently one can only have 4 partitions max, and Mint did not propose the option to install alongside Windows, only to replace it. So after deleting this partition I started windows and resized the WIndows partition using the disk manager I found somewhere in the configuration panel. After that the live DVD, when choosing Install linux Mint, presented the option "Install alongside Windows").

Re: HP mini netbook freezes after succesfull install

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 4:22 am
by betchern0t
Hi,
would you be running an integrated Intel chipset for graphics? There is a problem with these where you are presented with a black screen because it never turns on the backlight. if so:

Test for the problem:

1) boot off the live cid
2) open the terminal, sudo su and then mount the partition you used for mint on /mnt. gparted should list them something like /dev/sda4. If it was sda4:

Code: Select all

sudo su
mount /dev/sda4 /mnt
3) edit grub.cfg

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gedit grub.cfg
.
4) use your arrow keys to find the section for mint use the up and down arrows to find something like "menuentry 'Linux Mint ...." Under that is a load of indented stuff and then second last line: "linux /boot/vmlinuz....". At the end of that line is " quiet splash". Change that to "acpi_backlight=vendor"

5) Save your changes. Now reboot. You will hopefully see a different activity after the boot - lots of lines scrolling past. If it now will boot into mint and work ok, it is time to make the real fix.

Fix the problem

6) open terminal and sudo su. You will be asked for a password - use yours and edit /etc/default/grub

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sudo su
gedit /etc/default/grub
7) Aboiut 11 lines from the top you will see "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT". Add acpi_backlight=vendor to that line with the "quiet splash". Make sure you put spaces between them. Save and exit gedit. Update the gurb loader:

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update-grub
Other things to consider
xba
If the screen is still dark you may need to manually change the brightness. On my HP folio the function keys to do this don't work. You should try yours you may be lucky. If not I found that while the screen on the notbook was black an external screen was not. I then used xbacklight to set the backlight on. So

1) boot off the liveCD. Open a terminal

Code: Select all

sudo su
apt-get install xbacklight
xbacklight -set 100
HTH

Paul

Re: HP mini netbook freezes after succesfull install

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 7:23 am
by bartbar
Thank you for your reply.
I don't think it's related to the screen or graphics because booting from local disk, using the live DVD, works fine. Or am I totally mistaken? I have an idea it has something to do with initram or something such, but I'm really not knowledgeable enough at all to put my finger on it.

I finally removed Mint from the netbook and installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS instead, which worked flawlessly out of the box. I keep Mint on two other computers (desktops), and am very very happy with it, it's really perfect, but on the netbook I'm not going to invest more time in investigating now I have it up and working. It's my wife's anyway and she doesn't care about linux flavors, she's happy it's Linux and it's working.

So as far as I'm concerned the topic is (kind of) solved. If others feel to continue, feel free. Thanks again for your time.

Re: [SOLVED] HP mini netbook freezes after succesfull instal

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 10:32 am
by mr_raider
Was your install in legacy or EFI mode?