Problems with booting and shutting down

sampson · Post by **sampson** » Thu May 28, 2009 3:45 am

First off, I'm a Linux rookie. I ran my first Linux all last week from a LiveCD and finally decided to install this afternoon. However, my installation has not gone as smooth as my "live" experience as that ran beautifully. I also had no troubles with the installation steps; I partition my drive just fine and get through each of the seven steps without incident by following this walkthrough.

I have however run into some problems:

1. After I click "Finish" and the install runs and finishes, everything appears to be just fine. I noticed in the bottom right corner by the clock, there is a message which showed that 66 updates needed to be installed. I ran and installed all of them along with one NVidia update. It was suggested that I do a restart so the updated changes would take effect. When I attempted to restart, the computer just hangs at this:

http://i40.tinypic.com/2954cx3.jpg

It never shuts down or restarts, just hangs there until I force the computer to turn off by holding the power button. Why is that happening?

2. When attempting to power the computer back up and into LinuxMint, I receive the following:

http://i43.tinypic.com/2qw37yu.jpg

That screen just sits forever until I, again, press the power button. The very instant I press the power button, a new line of text shows up saying "Stopping GNOME display manager" and then it appears that the computer/Linux properly shuts down. Thus, I am now unable to access the OS whatsoever. What is happening?

sampson · Post by **sampson** » Sat May 30, 2009 12:09 am

Anyone?

newW2 · Post by **newW2** » Sat May 30, 2009 12:32 am

In Linux Mint 6 my HP Pavilion laptop had a problem where it would boot from the LiveCd but not after the install. In Gloria the same symptoms you mentioned were present. The solution is to add: hpet=disable to the kernel line of of menu.lst (/boot/grub/menu.lst).

Code: Select all

gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

When the file opens find the kernel stanza and make it look like this:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic root=/dev/sdxy ro hpet=disable quiet splash

hpet = high performance event timer. If you want to read more about the HPET, this is a good start: http://kerneltrap.org/node/6750

sampson · Post by **sampson** » Sat May 30, 2009 1:59 am

Could you add some specifics on how I do this? As I said before I am a Linux rookie, so I honestly didn't understand any of that.

newW2 · Post by **newW2** » Sat May 30, 2009 7:56 am

Oh sure. Let's try and get you booted in and running first. One way that people, me included, have forced a boot up or shut down when things get hung up, is to hold down a key on the keyboard (like the space bar or the Ctrl key). Btw, on my HP laptop I've had to do that (hold a key) even for the live Cd; that or let the computer just sit there for many, many, ... minutes until it continued booting without holding a key - however who wants to wait!

So if that trick didn't work for you, maybe you don't have the same problem.
Assuming this did work, open a terminal window (right click on the desktop somewhere and scroll down and select Open Terminal, or launch the Menu and select Terminal).

With the terminal open enter:

Code: Select all

gksu gedit /grub/boot/menu.lst

You will be prompted for your password. Note: there is no echo of the PW while you type the PW, but that's OK if you fat finger the PW you get another chance. Upon successfully entering the PW, the menu.lst file will open in the text editor. Scroll down and look for a stanza that looks like:

## ## End Default Options ##
title Linux Mint 7 Gloria, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=/dev/sdb1 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic
quiet

Of course your partition references root=/dev/sd## and (hd##) will be different.
You will make the change: hpet=disable" on the line that starts with "kernel". So you it will now look like this:

## ## End Default Options ##
title Linux Mint 7 Gloria, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=/dev/sdb1 hpet=disable ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic
quiet

Save the file,,, and close it. Reboot and .... you should boot and shut down from now on.
I hope that works for you.

sampson · Post by **sampson** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 2:55 pm

Holding down a key didn't work.

However, I have been reading around about this problems for days now and tinkering for several hours this afternoon and came to the conclusion that it could be a compatibility problem related to dual GPUs. I removed the second card and what do you know, Linux booted right up! I installed all necessary updates and rebooted again. All seemed well so I decided to go step by step, starting with initializing my second monitor. I'm having a slew of problems from jump street there. Trying to enable a second monitor immediately gives the following message:

"It appears your graphics drivers does not support the necessary extensions to use this tool. Do you want to use your graphics driver vendor tool instead?"

Seriously? I just installed the latest drivers.... There was unfortunately no 'HELL NO' option so I simply denied it. When all else failed, I did give it a try but even then Linux wouldn't make the selected adjustments after numerous attempts to change settings and apply them.

I had no idea that Linux was this "buggy". I'm determined to get off the Windows teat, but I'm losing patience and interest in Linux quickly...

exploder · Post by **exploder** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 9:57 pm

Mint 7 Gloria might be the answer to your problems. The Jaunty base is supposed to have better support for multiple displays. It's worth a shot.

sampson · Post by **sampson** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:44 pm

exploder wrote:Mint 7 Gloria might be the answer to your problems. The Jaunty base is supposed to have better support for multiple displays. It's worth a shot.

That's what I've got. http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

TomS · Post by **TomS** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 2:14 pm

I am having exactly the same problem, it's the NVIDIA driver that's causing the problem. I tried the 180 version and the 173 version and have reinstall Mint 7, 4 times the last time I didn't install the NVIDIA drivers and reboot without a problem but I can't get my second monitor to work I have two NVIDIA 8600gtx SLI cards with one monitor on each card connect via DVI and my 42" plasma tv connect to the S-video port on my second card. Any help would be appreciated...

Thanks,

Tom

kei84 · Post by **kei84** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 2:43 pm

Well, you can try other distros. When it comes to Linux, usually you have to go with the distro that better suits your pc or notebook. You have to try them and find out which one is the best for your system.

I don't know what are the configuration of your system, but I would suggest Debian, which is famous for being very stable and OpenSuse.

TomS · Post by **TomS** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 7:03 pm

Well, you can try other distros. When it comes to Linux, usually you have to go with the distro that better suits your pc or notebook. You have to try them and find out which one is the best for your system.

I don't know what are the configuration of your system, but I would suggest Debian, which is famous for being very stable and OpenSuse

Not a suggestion I was looking for, I have tried many disto's of Linux, I like Mint 7, and know there is or will be a solution, to this problem. If I want another option, I will go with WINDOWS 7 which is booting fine and with not bugs so far. Mint 7 has this bug and will not even load from the CD on my acer 5000 laptop from the DVD.iso.

Any real help or suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Tom

newW2 · Post by **newW2** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:29 am

Sorry to see you still have an issue. Here's something that may help:

xorg.conf for 6 monitor setup - using 3 x nvidia cards with 6 20" LCD monitors at 1680x1050 60hz - creates 3 virtual monitors using twinview then xinerama to combine them together - then used xserver-xgl ontop of it all to enable compiz - it creates one BIG virtual monitor across all 6 monitors.

Here's something that may help:

xorg.conf for 6 monitor setup - using 3 x nvidia cards with 6 20" LCD monitors at 1680x1050 60hz - creates 3 virtual monitors using twinview then xinerama to combine them together - then used xserver-xgl ontop of it all to enable compiz - it creates one BIG virtual monitor across all 6 monitors.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... ideo+cards
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... rds&page=2

Also remember you need to open xorg-conf with gedit as root first and then open nvidia-settings as root to make the changes append to xorg.conf. I seem to recall seeing the error message before - I had used envyng -t to install the latest driver and envy makes some setting changes that the hardware drivers tool does not.
Good luck - remember it's just a computer and it can be convinced that you are it's master.

TomS · Post by **TomS** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 7:28 pm

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Re: Problems with booting and shutting down

New postby newW2 on Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:29 am
Sorry to see you still have an issue. Here's something that may help:

xorg.conf for 6 monitor setup - using 3 x nvidia cards with 6 20" LCD monitors at 1680x1050 60hz - creates 3 virtual monitors using twinview then xinerama to combine them together - then used xserver-xgl ontop of it all to enable compiz - it creates one BIG virtual monitor across all 6 monitors.

Here's something that may help:

xorg.conf for 6 monitor setup - using 3 x nvidia cards with 6 20" LCD monitors at 1680x1050 60hz - creates 3 virtual monitors using twinview then xinerama to combine them together - then used xserver-xgl ontop of it all to enable compiz - it creates one BIG virtual monitor across all 6 monitors.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... ideo+cards
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... rds&page=2

Also remember you need to open xorg-conf with gedit as root first and then open nvidia-settings as root to make the changes append to xorg.conf. I seem to recall seeing the error message before - I had used envyng -t to install the latest driver and envy makes some setting changes that the hardware drivers tool does not.
Good luck - remember it's just a computer and it can be convinced that you are it's master.

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Impressive solution! I will try some of these changes to the xorg.cofg and other files next weekend and let everyone know how it goes. I have gotten several other ideas to try, from other posts I've read, but yours is most complete I have seen. I don't mind the messing around with the system files but as Mint progresses hopefully less of this kind of stuff will be necessary.

Great post!

Tom

TomS · Post by **TomS** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 11:57 am

Got it up and running and both monitors and the TV

took some work but it's all good now! I added the Busid line to the xorg.conf file and rebooted. I must have guessed right because it booted right up. I then had to use the nvidia xserver settings to create the xorg.conf, however it wouldn't save the file because the xorg.conf.backup already existed, so I previewed the file and saved it as a text file, then used the text file to overwrite the xorg.conf file. Rebooted and everything worked

Tom