Hello
I have an old i386 lenovo thinpad tablet-2 currently windows 8.
After disabling secure boot, I tried to install a Linux on it but all my tries fail.
Grub is loading correclty.
Memtest86 run on it without problem.
( I also tried some BSD but since it is an i386 UEFI only, no BSD seems to support this)
But the Linux kernel fail to boot on it, black screen (in case of debian installer, the screen is stuck with the install choice), no more info.
Since this is a tablet, there are no ethernet port. (I wanted to boot it blindly)
The bios speak about a debug port, but I found nothing which seems a physical debug port output.
I tried to wire the microusb power port on a USB host, but the host fail to enumerate any device (I tried also a spetial USB cable with data/power separated to be sure the problem was not the host failling to give enough power)
The tablet has only one port, so I use a hub for keyboard and USB key.
Immediatly after booting Linux, all hub port light goes to off.
I tried different own made kernel with different choice about CONFIG_FB, selecting all INTEL options, etc... no change
I tried to change video resolution via vga=ask or video=640x480 but no change.
Any clue on how debug further ?
Thanks
On Tue, May 09, 2023 at 08:29:50AM +0200, Corentin Labbe wrote:
> The bios speak about a debug port, but I found nothing which seems a
> physical debug port output. I tried to wire the microusb power port
> on a USB host, but the host fail to enumerate any device (I tried also
> a spetial USB cable with data/power separated to be sure the problem
> was not the host failling to give enough power)
>
> The tablet has only one port, so I use a hub for keyboard and USB key.
USB debug port is probably that one port, USB debug also does not work
through a hub :/
USB debug in general is a giant pain in the rear and I've never had much
luck with is. If it's that old to still need a i386 kernel then it's
probably USB2 at best and that requires a special magical cable too :-(
On 5/8/23 23:29, Corentin Labbe wrote:
> The tablet has only one port, so I use a hub for keyboard and USB key.
> Immediatly after booting Linux, all hub port light goes to off.
If it's dying in the installer, can you boot it to a shell or rescue
media? Are you getting any kernel messages on the screen before the
installer?
Le Tue, May 09, 2023 at 07:01:02AM -0700, Dave Hansen a ?crit :
> On 5/8/23 23:29, Corentin Labbe wrote:
> > The tablet has only one port, so I use a hub for keyboard and USB key.
> > Immediatly after booting Linux, all hub port light goes to off.
>
> If it's dying in the installer, can you boot it to a shell or rescue
> media? Are you getting any kernel messages on the screen before the
> installer?
>
Sorry my sentence was not precise ("after booting linux"),
It die after pressing enter on grub menu.
No kernel message, nothing new on screen.
Only visible change are USB light off.
I have really no clue.
On 5/9/23 13:37, Corentin Labbe wrote:
> Le Tue, May 09, 2023 at 07:01:02AM -0700, Dave Hansen a écrit :
>> On 5/8/23 23:29, Corentin Labbe wrote:
>>> The tablet has only one port, so I use a hub for keyboard and USB key.
>>> Immediatly after booting Linux, all hub port light goes to off.
>> If it's dying in the installer, can you boot it to a shell or rescue
>> media? Are you getting any kernel messages on the screen before the
>> installer?
>>
> Sorry my sentence was not precise ("after booting linux"),
>
> It die after pressing enter on grub menu.
> No kernel message, nothing new on screen.
> Only visible change are USB light off.
>
> I have really no clue.
A lot of distros set the 'quiet' option to _keep_ the kernel from
spewing messages at boot. Ubuntu sets "quiet splash", for instance.
Going into the grub menu and killing the 'quiet' and replacing it with
'debug' is a good place to start. earlyprintk=vga can also help if
things are still blank at that point. I thought we used to have an
earlyprintk=efi, but it seems to have vanished at some point.
But, you've got a bit of oddball hardware. It's from the _far_ extreme
end of 32-bit-only hardware. The fact that it had Windows on it isn't a
great sign. There could be a BIOS bug that trips Linux up but Windows
is perfectly happy with. There was definitely a sad period of time
where folks were not interested in fixing issues like that.
Le Tue, May 09, 2023 at 01:48:26PM -0700, Dave Hansen a ?crit :
> On 5/9/23 13:37, Corentin Labbe wrote:
> > Le Tue, May 09, 2023 at 07:01:02AM -0700, Dave Hansen a ?crit :
> >> On 5/8/23 23:29, Corentin Labbe wrote:
> >>> The tablet has only one port, so I use a hub for keyboard and USB key.
> >>> Immediatly after booting Linux, all hub port light goes to off.
> >> If it's dying in the installer, can you boot it to a shell or rescue
> >> media? Are you getting any kernel messages on the screen before the
> >> installer?
> >>
> > Sorry my sentence was not precise ("after booting linux"),
> >
> > It die after pressing enter on grub menu.
> > No kernel message, nothing new on screen.
> > Only visible change are USB light off.
> >
> > I have really no clue.
>
> A lot of distros set the 'quiet' option to _keep_ the kernel from
> spewing messages at boot. Ubuntu sets "quiet splash", for instance.
>
> Going into the grub menu and killing the 'quiet' and replacing it with
> 'debug' is a good place to start. earlyprintk=vga can also help if
> things are still blank at that point. I thought we used to have an
> earlyprintk=efi, but it seems to have vanished at some point.
>
> But, you've got a bit of oddball hardware. It's from the _far_ extreme
> end of 32-bit-only hardware. The fact that it had Windows on it isn't a
> great sign. There could be a BIOS bug that trips Linux up but Windows
> is perfectly happy with. There was definitely a sad period of time
> where folks were not interested in fixing issues like that.
Thanks for your hints.
I have already disabled quiet and unfortunatly, none of earlyprintk= changed anything.