Unable to boot without nomodeset

Support Driver and Hardware
1

I’ve installed Parrot Security MATE on my laptop from a liveUSB. I used the interactive installer.

The Issue

When I power on the laptop, I get a GRUB menu. When the timer passes, it launches the default option and begins booting. I get around a half-second of output and then it appears as if the display turns off. No black screen or blinking cursor, just straight nothing.

I am only able to boot into the MATE DE if I edit the GRUB boot options to disable modeset.
previous: ro quiet splash noautomount quiet now: nomodeset noautomount

When I’ve launched, I’m able to see that I’m running mesa as the graphics driver, but I’m not sure why that isn’t being properly activated in the booting process. Assuming that this is a driver issue.

I’m not a complete Linux noob but I think I’ve reached the limits of my knowledge on how to proceed here. Would love any support. While my install is working per se, it’s obviously not ideal to have to force this every time.

What I’ve Tried

  • Switching TTYs with ctrl-alt-arrow + ctrl-alt-f5/6/7
  • Removing ro or quiet splash options without including nomodeset
  • Updating video driver mesa
  • Removing xf86-video-intel

Logs

OS Version

DISTRIB_RELEASE=4.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=rolling
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Parrot 4.10"
PRETTY_NAME="Parrot GNU/Linux 4.10"
NAME="Parrot GNU/Linux"
ID=parrot
ID_LIKE=debian
VERSION="4.10"
VERSION_ID="4.10"
HOME_URL="https://www.parrotsec.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://community.parrotsec.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://community.parrotsec.org/"

Kernel Version

Linux parrot 5.9.0-2parrot1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.9.6-2parrot1 (2020-11-17) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Hardware information

lspci

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 35)
00:0b.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series Power Management Controller (rev 35)
00:13.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series SATA Controller (rev 35)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series USB xHCI Controller (rev 35)
00:1a.0 Encryption controller: Intel Corporation Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series Trusted Execution Engine (rev 35)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series High Definition Audio Controller (rev 35)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series PCI Express Port #1 (rev 35)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series PCU (rev 35)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx SMBus Controller (rev 35)
01:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 3160 (rev 83)

inxi

CPU: Quad Core Intel Pentium N3710 (-MCP-) speed/min/max: 2364/480/2560 MHz 
Kernel: 5.9.0-2parrot1-amd64 x86_64 Up: 26m Mem: 1621.7/3836.4 MiB (42.3%) 
Storage: 119.24 GiB (6.4% used) Procs: 205 Shell: Bash inxi: 3.2.02

inxi -G

Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx 
  Integrated Graphics 
  driver: N/A 
  Device-2: Realtek Integrated Webcam type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 driver: loaded: vesa 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting resolution: 1366x768~76Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.0.1 128 bits) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.3.2

Happy to provide any additional logs as needed.

2

I think you are having very old graphic card?

3

Hi dmknght. The machine is a Dell Inspiron 11 from the 3000 series. I believe these laptops came out in 2016. Not particularly new but not significantly old.

I’ll note that this laptop has run Ubuntu 20.04 previously with no issues.

4

I think it could be graphic driver issue. Maybe missing a package for Intel driver or something. IDK about Ubuntu 20 but i guess it should have preinstalled package for Intel graphic (or amd). Or maybe AMD could have extra packages that Debian brach don’t have and we are Debian-based.

5

@beszel please try install packages from this URL from your recovery mode
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Intel/NUC5PPYH

6

No luck unfortunately @dmknght. I think I’ve identified the source of the issue by filming a video of my computer screen while it boots (go figure). The final message in the boot process is fb: switching to inteldrmfb from EFI VGA. I suspect it’s similar to this bug identified on FreeDesktop but I’m unable to tell if that patch would work on Parrot…

7

Is there a way to lock my kernel version to stop updates that may cause hardware compatibility issues?

8

I moved to parrot from Ubuntu used it since 2009 and I had a lot of issues getting Ubuntu to work properly it took me a month or 2 to get it working but there were still issues that I couldn’t get around like the whole nomodeset issue and I couldn’t suspend or use a second monitor.

Once I switched to parrot all those issues went away and it works flawlessly. I am so surprised how well it installed and worked on my system compared to Ubuntu. All the issues I had are now gone and I love the work that the parrot team is doing.

There’s a problem with your graphics driver is what it sounds like to me.

  1. Did you turn secure boot on or off?
  2. Is legacy boot on or off?

What is your AMD architecture? for example CARIZZO or RYZEN

If you can give me more info about your computer I might be able to help you better :slight_smile:

9

I hope you fixed your issue! :slight_smile: if you didn’t I can do my best to help along with the others

10

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