system not booting into GUI after kernel upgrade

First of all: this is a great distro! I enjoy the experience of coming back to good old Gentoo, without having to work on endless configuration items. I have become lazy …

I wonder if anybody else came across the problem:

  • the Calculate GUI “Linux Update” installed the 4.1.10-calculate kernel (2 days ago)

  • the next day, when I restarted my computer, after the boot splash I only saw a blinking cursor

  • so no GUI login / X11

After a bit of research I did the following to fix the problem:

  • hit Alt+Ctrl+F1 to get a console login
  • logged in as regular user
  • startx
  • error message was “fatal: module nvidia not found”
  • logged in as root
  • # uname -r (gave 4.1.10-calculate)
  • # depmod
  • # modprobe nvidia (gave, as expected, an error)
  • # emerge -v nvidia-drivers
  • # emerge @module-rebuild
  • # equery f nvidia-drivers | grep modules
  • reboot - got my MATE running again

I might have to mention two non-standard items on this computer:

  • booting thru Grub 2 is controlled by a different OS, an update-grub has been done there after the Calculate kernel upgrade
  • the installation of the new kernel thru the Calculate GUI console took real long: after 3 hours, on a Pentium Core Duo desktop, I clicked the “break process” -button. Maybe that’s why the nvidia module was never emerged.

All the best …

- the installation of the new kernel thru the Calculate GUI console took real long: after 3 hours, on a Pentium Core Duo desktop, I clicked the “break process” -button. Maybe that’s why the nvidia module was never emerged.

Yes !

Because when you make an update (GUI or CLI) the calculate tool do :

  • Update repositories

  • Update system settings

  • Find packages to update

  • Update them

  • Rebuild python or perl modules packages

  • Delete useless packages

  • Rebuild modules ( emerge @module-rebuild )

The tree last steps didn’t executed on your computer :wink:

You could have restart the update :wink:

Thanks for responding Adrien!

A few questions come to my mind:

  • why didn’t the update process finish within 3 hours? Are the kernel sources + modules compiled or copied as binaries to /boot and /lib/module? On my machine even a source install should have been finished in that timeframe!
  • why does the script, after my click on ‘break process’ not rewind to the 3.18 kernel so I have a bootable system. For a newbie that would have been a no-go, bye bye Calculate …
  • You say ‘last three steps not executed’. How comes there are not 100’s of other modules missing? The `emerge `` module-rebuild` just executed on nvidia and one broadcom -driver.
    • As a first aid I tried to change driver to “nv” in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. This didn’t help. No open source nvidia driver supplied with this kernel?
    • amazingly, after the failed kernel update, I could boot (from my old Grub config in the other Linux partition) into kernel 3.18. I then did start another update: no work on the kernel has been done! I guess symlinks in /usr/src and /boot were still there and pointing on 3.18 (sorry, I didn’t check)?! At that point in time (failed update to 4.1, booted into 3.18) I did emerge --depclean; emerge --update --newuse --deep ``world; emerge --depclean\. Only thereafter kernel 4.1 must have become active and 3.18 cleaned out.

Be safe …

why didn’t the update process finish within 3 hours? Are the kernel sources + modules compiled or copied as binaries to /boot and /lib/module? On my machine even a source install should have been finished in that timeframe!

Binary or not ? (purple package = binary, green package = compilation)

why does the script, after my click on ‘break process’ not rewind to the 3.18 kernel so I have a bootable system. For a newbie that would have been a no-go, bye bye Calculate …
Hummm good question, it can be an evolution of calculate update tool.

You say ‘last three steps not executed’. How comes there are not 100’s of other modules missing? The `emerge @module-rebuild` just executed on nvidia and one broadcom -driver.
Rebuild external modules not embedded modules i think

amazingly, after the failed kernel update, I could boot (from my old Grub config in the other Linux partition) into kernel 3.18. I then did start another update: no work on the kernel has been done! I guess symlinks in /usr/src and /boot were still there and pointing on 3.18 (sorry, I didn’t check)?! At that point in time (failed update to 4.1, booted into 3.18) I did `emerge --depclean; emerge --update --newuse --deep @world; emerge --depclean`. Only thereafter kernel 4.1 must have become active and 3.18 cleaned out.
I don’t understand :’(

  • Binary or not ? (purple package = binary, green package = compilation)
    I have no clue :frowning: It’s a vanilla Calculate i686 Linux, so my guess is “binary”. I rely on what Calculate selects for me.
  • I don’t understand :’(
    Basically I tried to say “I did another system update attempt with the Calculate GUI, but apparently the tool decided I am up-to-date and didn’t install the, broken, 4.1 kernel again”.

http://www.calculate-linux.ru/boards/23/topics/29972?r=29975#message-29975

Thank you for the reference Sergei! It seems I’m not the only one who came across the issue after installation of kernel 4.1. Anyway, my problem was solved with “nvidia-drivers” - I’m on the road again …