Bug 139556 – LiveCD freezes because of lack of video memory

• Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO
• Product: Gentoo Release Media

[Description Nick Dobson 2006-07-07 07:44:56 UTC]

The 2006.0 livecd hangs while trying to start Xorg. I have tried an endless combination of kernel options along with nox and it still attempts to start Xorg. I would paste dmesg here but as you can see it is impossible to get to a regular shell.

[Comment 1 Andrew Gaffney (RETIRED) 2006-07-07 07:58:18 UTC]

What is the filename of the ISO you downloaded? I just double-check livecd-i686-installer-2006.0.iso, and 'gentoo nox' gives me the a prompt. What is the last thing you see before it hangs?

[Comment 2 Nick Dobson 2006-07-07 10:24:35 UTC]

I have the exact same ISO file name. It gives no special prompt after i type 'gentoo nox' and it hangs after the 'switching to xorg-x11 opengl interface' line. The only peculiar thing i can catch as the cd boots is that it complains that it cant bring up the splash image because /dev/fb does not exist. does /dev/fb have something to do with the frambuffer? because i am booting the normal gentoo image.

(In reply to comment #1)
> What is the filename of the ISO you downloaded? I just double-check
> livecd-i686-installer-2006.0.iso, and 'gentoo nox' gives me the a prompt. What
> is the last thing you see before it hangs?
> 

[Comment 3 Nick Dobson 2006-07-07 10:27:09 UTC]

Also note that before hanging it says "no opengl capable card found" Again this is after i specify 'gentoo nox'

(In reply to comment #2)
> I have the exact same ISO file name. It gives no special prompt after i type
> 'gentoo nox' and it hangs after the 'switching to xorg-x11 opengl interface'
> line. The only peculiar thing i can catch as the cd boots is that it complains
> that it cant bring up the splash image because /dev/fb does not exist. does
> /dev/fb have something to do with the frambuffer? because i am booting the
> normal gentoo image.
> 
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > What is the filename of the ISO you downloaded? I just double-check
> > livecd-i686-installer-2006.0.iso, and 'gentoo nox' gives me the a prompt. What
> > is the last thing you see before it hangs?
> > 
> 

[Comment 4 Chris Gianelloni (RETIRED) 2006-07-07 13:10:41 UTC]

What video card do you have?

Anyway, you're getting a freeze before it *ever* hits X, so it has nothing to do with nox.

Try booting with "gentoo-nofb nox" but I can pretty much guarantee that it won't work.  The solution is to allow more RAM for your video.  I'm betting you've got on-board video and it is setup to only use something like 1MB or even 4MB.  Basically, if it is less than 8MB, it's a problem.

[Comment 5 Chris Gianelloni (RETIRED) 2006-08-23 08:58:49 UTC]

No response in > 30 days.  Feel free to REOPEN after trying the last suggestions from me if it still does not work.

Thanks...