Hello Andy, Thank you for your answer. The computer has 8 Gb memory, a lot more than enough to load the image. The graphics are NVIDIA 4200M, with drivers provided, under Debian 10, by the legacy deb packages. Of course, I could try upgrading directly from Debian 10 and rely on the backups if something goes wrong. As said, I did that for previous releases... but only after having successfully made a test with the live image. But you gave me one idea: I'll try the “standard” live image, without any graphics and try to build from that to see what happens. Cheerio! mol El Sun, 26 Dec 2021 13:17:07 +0000 "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> escribió: > On Sun, Dec 26, 2021 at 11:47:27AM +0100, Miguel Ortiz Lombardía > wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I have been using Debian on a Dell Latitude e6520 for ten years now. > > At present, it runs without problem an up-to-date Debian 10 system. > > > > From the beginning, before upgrading to any new release, I tried its > > live image. This strategy has always successfully allowed upgrading > > without stress. Sometimes I would do an upgrade, sometimes a clean > > new installation. The latter one was the case for Debian 10. > > > > Now, since Debian 11 was released earlier this year, I've been > > testing its behaviour on the machine. Unfortunately, even with the > > latest live image, including non-free firmware, the test is not > > passed. The computer boots well and the graphical interface (I > > tried my usual xfce, but also mate) appears neat and working. > > However, after a few moments varying from few seconds to no more > > than a couple of minutes, the system freezes completely. Impossible > > to open a console, there is no answer at all, only physical > > shutdown is possible. > > Hi Mol, > > How much memory? What graphics? If you have the Nvidia NV620 and 4GB > it's probably best _not_ to use the live disk - it takes a large > amount of memory to get the live CD to boot and if nouveau is not the > ideal driver then you do get lockups and similar. > > If you are currently using the non-free drivers on Debian 10, then you > could, potentially just upgrade to Debian 11 on the same hardware. I > do find it easier to install a bare minimum text only system if > feasible _then_ install the non-free drivers but that may not be > possible for you. > > All the very best, as ever, > > Andy Cater > > > I have searched for other people having similar problems and found a > > forum where someone described the same issue with the Manjaro > > distro: > > > > https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=6d5881750b8f3ceb6a12708b3a7683c9&p=6287384#post6287384 > > > > Unfortunately, the only advice given is to switch to another > > distribution (AntiX is mentioned) I would prefer to stay on Debian, > > but it's true that when support and security updates will arrive to > > an end for Debian 10, I will need to move anyway to a different > > distro if this problem is not solved. > > > > Incidentally, I must say that I'm also unable to run Tails on this > > machine since a few releases ago, for what looks as precisely the > > same problem. > > > > I wonder if this trouble could result from the upgrading of the > > kernel to version 5.x? Or from the newest versions of Xorg or the > > nouveau driver? By the way, I thought that the non-free nvidia > > module and not nouveau would be used in the live images with > > non-free firmware. > > Nvidia non-free modules really need to be built per machine: nouveau > is a good compromise. > > > > The only debugging step I have managed to take during the few > > seconds where the system is running is capturing in a file, on > > another USB stick, the output of: > > > > # sudo dmesg -wH > > > > I have compared it with the results of the same command on my > > normally running Debian 10. But my capacities to extract from there > > any useful information are too limited. I hesitate to send those > > longs files to the list. > > > > Any clues would be welcomed. > > > > Cheers, > > > > -- mol > > > >
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