Re: Upgrade Kernel, Lose External Display

[Gilbert Sullivan <whirlygig@comcast.net>]

On 06/11/2010 04:30 PM, Andreas Rönnquist wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:06:04 -0400
> Gilbert Sullivan<whirlygig@comcast.net>  wrote:
>
> > Running Squeeze with Xfce desktop environment (only) on Dell Latitude
> > D810. Nvidia video card running the VESA driver (though there's a bunch
> > of verbiage in dmesg about nouveau). System is normally connected to a
> > port replicator and DVI display (1680x1050).
> >
> > Upgraded from 2.6.32-3 to 2.6.32-6 this morning, saying yes to
> > reconfiguration.
> >
> > Upon reboot I see the normal scrolling of messages in the middle of the
> > screen, but (after populating devices message) the screen goes black.
> ----->8------
> > Many thanks for clues.
> Hi!
>
> I've ran into this too, and got this solved by blacklisting the nouveau
> module in
>
> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
>
> (adding a line containing just "blacklist nouveau"),
> and adding modeset=0 to my kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst (I am
> still on grub-legacy, don't know how it is done on grub-2 unfortunately)
>
> This made the system boot fine, but X didn't start before reinstalling
> the nvidia drivers. Doing so and rebooted I was in a functional X, just
> like before the upgrade of the kernel.
>
> best regards

Many thanks for this information, Andreas. I'll study the possibility of 
blacklisting nouveau, but it sounds like I'll have to overcome two 
issues to make use of it.

First, I'm using grub 2. Second, I've learned the hard way that this 
system does not get along with the nvidia proprietary drivers. (That's 
why I've been using vesa. Vesa has been slow, but absolutely rock solid 
for me.)

Again, many thanks.