Upgrade... Blank Screen where GDM should be

[flipjargendy]

After not upgrading for a few days I decided to do so, last night. I shut the computer down when I was done for the night. Today, I came home and started up the computer... everything went as normal. But after everything loads and the login screen should appear, I get a black, blank screen.

I have booted to the rescue kernel, where I was able to connect to the internet, update && upgrade and restart. That didn't do the trick, so I looked around and found this post which did not work either.

I also tried dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg.... it was a stretch.. I know.

Here is some info:

Release: Debian Squeeze

uname -r
2.6.32-5-686

Unfortunately, I do not know what the hardware is on this Panasonic CF-29 Toughbook, as it was given to me and I never really cared to look, since I don't do anything very intensive on it.

[Segfault]

You say GDM, so I assume you are talking about GUI login. If you switch to console, can you see login? When exactly the screen goes black? When Grub loads? When kernel loads? When GDM loads?

[flipjargendy]

After seeing everything starting up, as it scrolls by and says things like HALD is starting and what not... So when GDM loads.

Also, I cannot switch to console. When I hit CTRL+ALT+F1 the screen remains the same... this is true for any (F*) function key I use.

[Segfault]

Google tells it has Intel 82830 Graphics Controller.

I do not use Intel myself, but I do know there is some contoversy about Intel drivers and KMS. It seems some Intel drivers have made KMS mandatory, not sure what version your Debian is using. Sorry, can't help further. You can stop GDM from loading and try to load X with startx, and look for errors in Xorg log.

[flipjargendy]

I was hoping this might be something that happen to more people and it would have been figured out.... I will keep searching. In the meantime, if anyone has a suggestions that would be great.

ON ANOTHER NOTE: I just tried... I am able to boot to the Trunk version of the Kernel... I have been wondering what the difference is between the "non-trunk" kernel and "trunk" kernel is... I am going to do some reading.

[jdkaye]

Based on the kernel you are running Squeeze (testing).
I would second Segfault's advice. Also can you boot into recovery (safe) mode from grub? If yes, when you give your root password to log in, is everything normal? If all seems well then the problem is at least isolated and it has something to do with your x-system.
ciao,
jdk

[orelien]

I've just got the same issue early this week after the last upgrade: blank screen when starting gdm.

In fact, the problem is not linked to gdm but to Xorg.

If I try to manually start Xorg from the command line, I get the blank screen issue.
The PC is frozen and I can't switch to any VT.
And unfortunately there is nothing logged in /var/log/Xorg.log.

Xorg startup is silent and freezes the computer.
I tried to run Xorg with verbose and logverbose options but without success. Still nothing logged.

I tried to run Xorg -configure to get a fresh xorg.conf file.
The operation did not seem to have any problem to discover the hardware.

But even with this file, the problem is still there.

Perhaps a problem with the xorg-video-intel driver?

Any idea?
Thanks

[hazel]

After seeing everything starting up, as it scrolls by and says things like HALD is starting and what not... So when GDM loads.

Also, I cannot switch to console. When I hit CTRL+ALT+F1 the screen remains the same... this is true for any (F*) function key I use.

I had this too. It could be that xorg is depending on udev to recognise your mouse and keyboard (which is the default behaviour nowadays) and udev is not playing ball. I suggest you boot into single (recovery) mode and examine /var/log/X.log.0 to see how it is recognising (or not recognising) the keyboard. If that is the problem, you could try adding this to your xorg.conf:

Section "ServerFlags"
        Option "AutoAddDevices" "False"
        Option "AllowEmptyInput" "False"
EndSection

That will switch xorg back to using the mouse and keyboard described in the file.