Solus 4.1 Plasma ISO doesn't boot properly

[deleted]

Hi,

since Solus 4.1 released early I wanted to try the Plasma image, but it doesn't boot properly.

All I get is a mouse cursor and a black screen from which I can to TTY.

I tried different USB sticks, creating the image with Etcher instead of Rufus, ISO mode instead of DD mode with Rufus and downloading the ISO again from a different mirror.

Made no difference.

I have a Ryzen 2700X on a X470 board and a RX 5700XT.

I can boot the 4.1 images for Gnome and Budgie without problems. Manjaro 18.1.5 Plasma also boots fine.
Installing in Virtualbox also works using the downloaded ISO so I don't think it gets corrupted during download.

This just looks like when I tried to boot any older Solus 4 ISO with the RX 5700XT.
But the Kernel and Mesa are new enough now that it should work (and it does with different up to date distro images).

So I have no idea what could be wrong.

Edit:

This is how it looks when I hit "CTRL + ALT + F1" from TTY:

[deleted]

[deleted]
Going to TTY, logging in with the live user and restarting sddm made the GUI show up and I could install without problems.

The install boots up without any trouble too. But for the live image I have to restart sddm every time before I get a GUI.

If anyone else encounters this problem with the Solus 4.1 Plasma image:

Hit CTRL + ALT + F2
Login with the user live
The user has no password so just hit Enter
Stop sddm with systemctl stop sddm.service
Start sddm with systemctl start sddm.service

The GUI should load now.

Walt

[deleted] I just tried a USB for Solus Plasma. Booted to black screen. Tried your fix but it says that sddm_service isn't loaded so I went ahead and tried to start it and it says it can't find it.

Girtablulu

glad you fixed it but sounds like a race condition while booting from the iso

303whodey

No luck for me booting into the live environment (blurry R side of screen, unresponsive mouse click actions, no task bar) or trying the above method. I used RUFUS and the DD method. I have a Ryzen 3900X on a Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master MOBO. GPU is a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER.

Flo

I know the thread is old, but i can be usefull if it happen to someone else again :
I could fix that by changing de "quick boot" option in my BIOS to off.

Hope it'll help 🙂

Walt

I've tried 3 different USB ISO burning programs and each failed in a different way. I think the ISO is defective or so POORLY done that it wouldn't work with the 3 most popular ISO burners. Makes me wonder about problems in the OS if the ISO is this buggy. Will warn my friends to stay away from Solus.

brent

Walt This is the verification and installation method preferred by solus: https://getsol.us/articles/installation/preparing-to-install/en/

You shouldn't be eager to badmouth this distro based on unproven assumptions.

WetGeek

Walt I think the ISO is defective or so POORLY done

I've used both rufus (on Windows) and etcher (on Linux) to build installable USB keys for Budgie, MATE, and Plasma, and all have worked perfectly. As far as I know, I used the same ISO files you did. Many hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of others have done the same, so I'm guessing the problem is likely to be with you or your system.

Many times I've gotten very valuable advice and help from this forum, all without insulting the developers or their capabilities or their work.

Walt

Please forgive me y'all, when I typed that I'd been at it for hours. I've tried it multiple times with each of 5 different ISO USB creators with every setting imaginable. I tried torrented ISOs as well as one from each mirror. AND I HAD RUN OUT OF COFFEE!! LOL!
Some more info-
The computer is a fairly old Lenovo Thinkcentre with an i5-4670, 16 GB of matched RAM, and the only non stock component is an Asus dual-fan 1050ti gpu. The only peripherals are the 2 monitors, wired mouse, and keyboard.

When attempting to boot the USB, I can briefly see 4 lines that all say roughly "KVM disabled in BIOS".
Then the many lines of small text scroll by as it loads (seems normal), then it goes to a black screen with the Linux cursor and both monitors have the blank desktop that the mouse can traverse.

Again, please accept my apologies for my hasty words of frustration.

WetGeek

Walt Again, please accept my apologies for my hasty words of frustration.

Already accepted, speaking for me. KVM is about a kernel-based virtualization. You're not trying to install this as a VM, are you? (I suspect it's just something that the installer reports on as it evaluates the system.)

I'm in the US. If you happen to live here, too, I'll be glad to mail you a USB key with Plasma installed on it, that I've used more than once to install Solus. (I just don't want to deal with complications from Customs to do it.)

That would eliminate one possible cause of your problems. Narrowing it down to something that needs to be changed in your Lenovo.

Justin

Walt Time to stop drinking coffee if the withdrawals make you that irrational.

Walt

WetGeek Thank you so much. No, not trying to install in a VM. I think it is just a rare quirk of something that it doesn't like about my hardware. It loads, both monitors work (Linux cursor can move between them), but there is just a black screen and the keyboard does not have any effect. I know Nvidia can have issues in Linux, but the freeware drivers that are usually installed in other distros work fine.
Does Solus live USB initially use freeware GPU drivers or the Nvidia proprietary one? I've had the newest proprietary Nvidia driver cause problems in some other distros.
I can boot any other distro's live USB so I don't think yours would work, but APPRECIATE the offer. Again, I think it is a rare quirk of something about my hardware it doesn't like. I may try unplugging my GPU and try it with just the Intel integrated graphics.

WetGeek

Walt I may try unplugging my GPU and try it with just the Intel integrated graphics.

That sounds like a good, cheap, first step. If it does work without the GPU, then it would be worth some more time to figure out if it might work with the GPU, but with the proper driver...

EDIT: ... or BIOS settings that it likes better than what's currently set.