Dual monitors worked on Live USB, but not on full install (Dell U2419HX)

Justin

vasiliospavlos I'd just like to see if they're different, then we can figure out why.

vasiliospavlos

Justin They are different!

Full Install:

Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] 
  driver: N/A 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.6 driver: ati,vesa 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,radeon resolution: 1920x1080~N/A 
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 9.0.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 19.3.3

Live USB:

Graphics:
Device-1: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] 
  driver: amdgpu
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.6 driver: amdgpu,ati
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,radeon resolution: 1920x1080~N/A 
  OpenGL: renderer: Radeon RX580 Series (POLARIS10 DRM 3.35.0
  5.4.12-144.current LLVM 9.0.0
  v: 4.5 Mesa 19.3.2

So, I do have to enter nomodeset before quiet splash in grub before it'll boot. Otherwise, the screen will go black (and say no signal). When that happens, I have to hit CTRL + ALT + F2 to get into tty.

What's weird is, when I booted off the Live USB it worked fine -- and it continued to work fine when I exited the Live USB and went into the full install! A reboot of the full install brings the problem right back.

DataDrake

vasiliospavlos By setting nomodeset you are forcing the system to fallback to llvmpipe which is CPU rendered, not GPU.

stylste

Did you update your system after the installation?
If yes check if you have the previous kernel .
As root you can edit the /boot/efi/EFI/loader/loader.conf to use the kernel you want.
I hope it will work for you as it dit for me when i installed and updated solus the first time.

Edit
You will find the kernels that you have in /boot/efi/EFI/com.solus-project

vasiliospavlos

DataDrake

Hmmm. I figured as much. it's the only way I can get into the desktop though. Which is even more confusing, because it should be loading the same drivers as it did on the Live USB, no?

stylste

I did update the system, I installed it using a Live USB i downloaded maybe an hour before that. When you say "use the kernel you want", is it as easy as changing that string of text? How do I know what to enter? Are there other steps involved in updating the kernel? Sorry, total noob about that stuff.

stylste

vasiliospavlos is it as easy as changing that string of text

Yes .

stylste

vasiliospavlos How do I know what to enter?

Copy the kernel version you want from /boot/efi/EFI/com.solus-project
to
/boot/efi/EFI/loader.conf
e.g.
if in /boot/efi/EFI/com.solus-project folder there is kernel-com.solus-project.current.5.3.18-140
you edit the /boot/efi/EFI/loader.conf file to read
default Solus-current-5.3.18-140
On the next reboot the kernel current-5.3.18-140 will be used

vasiliospavlos

stylste Going to try this today and will report back!

vasiliospavlos

stylste

okay, so update.

I don’t have any of those folders (except boot,
obviously). I am nearly certain I installed with UEFI in mind but there’s a ‘grub’ folder.

inside of ‘boot’ there are four archives which appear to be kernel names / versions.

should I reinstall as UEFI and see if that’s the case?

Edit: well tried reinstalling as UEFI. That was a colassal mistake. Same issue now I don’t have grub to enable ‘nomodeset’ (black screens, monitors turn off from no signal)

edit 2: now I can’t even get past my motherboards boot screen. Cool.

edit 3: the saga continues. I’m running the live USB. Just going to format the SSD and start over (again)

edit 4: SSD formatted and awaiting instructions lol

stylste

Do you have any other linux dist. instlled on your ssd now or earlier?

vasiliospavlos

stylste Nope! Only and ever Solus.

(technically none right now)

Justin

vasiliospavlos Are you using the full disk install option? If not, use that.

stylste

Is there any other disk mounted on the system?
Edit
What is the output of
lsblk
on the teminal?

vasiliospavlos

stylste

here’s what terminal shows

stylste

Because your ssd disk has already two instalations in it i could suggest before the third installation a full wipe.You can do it from the live media using the dd command.
Read here : https://how-to.fandom.com/wiki/How_to_wipe_a_hard_drive_clean_in_Linux

vasiliospavlos

stylste

I got this error when running sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/nvme0n1 bs=1M

dd: error writing '/nvme0n1': No space left on device 1+0 records in 0+0 records out 0 bytes copied, 0.000540503 s, 0.0 kB/s

edit: I just changed the command to sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/nvme0n1 bs=1M

it appears to be running (no errors yet). In top it shows dd running at 90% CPU 🙂

edit #2: Okay, weird, it ran for a while, but then still gave me an error:

dd: error writing '/dev/nvme0n1': No space left on device 953870+0 records in 953869+0 records out 1000204886016 bytes (1.0 TB, 932 GiB) copied, 784.706 s, 1.3 GB/s

I'm learning a metric ton! Now what?

stylste

Install nvme-cli to check your disk for errors
sudo eopkg install nvme-cli
and run it
sudo nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0n1

vasiliospavlos

stylste

here's the output from sudo nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0n1

critical_warning : 0 temperature : 45 C available_spare : 100% available_spare_threshold : 10% percentage_used : 0% data_units_read : 17,305 data_units_written : 2,058,962 host_read_commands : 241,815 host_write_commands : 2,122,446 controller_busy_time : 14 power_cycles : 24 power_on_hours : 1 unsafe_shutdowns : 10 media_errors : 0 num_err_log_entries : 33 Warning Temperature Time : 0 Critical Composite Temperature Time : 0 Temperature Sensor 1 : 45 C Temperature Sensor 2 : 54 C Thermal Management T1 Trans Count : 0 Thermal Management T2 Trans Count : 0 Thermal Management T1 Total Time : 0 Thermal Management T2 Total Time : 0

vasiliospavlos

It did not like that. TON of "failed" errors when installing the pkg. Like, dozens.

Says no space left on device. Going to reboot live USB and try again.

stylste

Try in mbr-bios mode

vasiliospavlos

stylste uh...like....reboot and use the Live USB in a non-UEFI environment?