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  • Can't boot into latest kernel

I had installed Solus many years ago, and I suppose back then the default kernel was the LTS one. I have been running it since, without ever giving it much thought.

This latest update seems to have broken things for me, so I've been trying to permanently change to the current kernel.

However, I'm running into some issues.

Here's what I did so far:

  • Install all my pending updates (I had done a rollback last week, to be able to boot into LTS for the time being).
  • Go to the Solus boot loader, and select the latest kernel 5.6.13-153.
  • I'll boot into the blinking white cursor. This is fine, I don't have the corresponding Nvidia driver installed at this point.
  • Go into TTY, run sudo eopkg it linux-headers-current and sudo eopkg it nvidia-glx-driver-current.
  • Reboot.

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to do it. I tried some of the steps on the General Troubleshooting page, mainly:

  • Running sudo eopkg up. Nothing new to update.
  • Running sudo eopkg check | grep Broken | awk '{print $4}' | xargs sudo eopkg it --reinstall. It actually found 2 broken packages (adapta-gtk-theme and packagekit) and reinstalled it. I thought this might have been it, but after rebooting the problem still stands.
  • Running eopkg info linux-current | head -n2; uname -a and checking for diferent versions. I suppose this is where my problem is (sudo systemctl --failed gives me that lightdm failed to load), as the first lane of this command gives me:

linux-current, version 5.6.18, release 155, while the second line tells me that my Kernel is 5.6.13-153.current for some reason.

Running sudo clr-boot-manager list-kernels gives me that I'm supposed to be running on 5.6.18-155, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Kernel Versions

I'm not sure what could be the reason for this, and I don't really know how I'm supposed to proceed from here. Is there something else I can try? Any commands I can run to provide some better debug for this? I've not been able to run any of the latest updates ever since this problem showed up, so I'd like to have it resolved eventually, and preferably with a method that doesn't require me to nuke this machine, as I've been using for years, and starting from scratch now would really suck.

Thanks in advance everyone 🙂

    • [deleted]

    What is the output of this command? sudo eopkg list-installed | grep nvidia
    Be sure to uninstall the proprietary driver first so that we will know if it's a driver issue

      [deleted] Running that command outputs (I did a rollback and I'm currently back on the LTS kernel pre-update, btw):

      nvidia-390-glx-driver-modaliases            - These files are used by the Software Center for hardware detection
      nvidia-glx-driver                           - NVIDIA Binary Driver (LTS Kernel)
      nvidia-glx-driver-32bit                     - 32-bit libraries for nvidia-glx-driver
      nvidia-glx-driver-common                    - Shared assets for the NVIDIA GLX Driver
      nvidia-glx-driver-modaliases                - These files are used by the Software Center for hardware detection

      Not quite sure why the nvidia-390-glx-driver-modaliases is there, but everything else seems to point that the nvidia-glx-driver-current is the correct one to use, right?

        WannaBeOCer Yes, or course, that was one of the first steps I did:

        Go into TTY, run (...) sudo eopkg it nvidia-glx-driver-current.

        I just had to do a rollback of all of that because I couldn't get it work in the end and I still need a machine I can boot into for work

          • [deleted]

          GueGuerreiro I asked because nvidia remove support for old video cards in the new drivers and maybe that's the reason why the old driver works fine

            DataDrake Thank you for popping by. I installed all pending updates, booted into current, installed the nvidia current drivers and rebooted into current again, then ran dmesg and this is the output: https://hastebin.com/ewibiloceh.coffeescript

            [deleted] Gotcha. That would make sense. I appreciate you taking the time to reply, I admit I'm not the best when it comes to more in-depth Linux inner workings and keeping up with all the stuff that happens around the ecosystem, so it's always good to get an explanation 😀

              GueGuerreiro So it looks like the kernel booted fine and then your Intel GPU takes over. Maybe /var/log/Xorg.0.log will shed some like after a failed boot?

                DataDrake This is what I had there on a failed boot: https://hastebin.com/mukekayogu.cpp

                I actually tried uninstalling the Nvidia drivers with doflicky and yeah, I can boot into the current kernel that way, it just makes stuff like gaming impossible 🙁 but I guess the problem is with the driver somehow

                  The new driver (440.100) has a changelog entry that says
                  "Added a workaround for some Pascal based notebooks, where the GPU could fall off the bus when idle."
                  Not sure if that is connected to your problem though.

                    Staudey "Added a workaround for some Pascal based notebooks, where the GPU could fall off the bus when idle."

                    Sometimes you have to love patch notes humor

                    4 days later

                    I'll try to wait for resync next friday, and see if somehow it was just the driver version that's messing me up. I'll try again and report back then.

                    5 days later

                    So I tried this again with the new sync. Same thing. Couldn't boot.

                    This time, however, the rollback failed. I tried running it again, and it kept failing. Something about libcrypt, I guess it was missing with the rollback.

                    I couldn't even run stuff like reboot or shutdown. I forcefully shutdown with the laptop button, and now I get a Kernel panic every time I boot into the Kernel.

                    So that's gg, right? Nothing I can do other than start over?

                      GueGuerreiro Have you tried pressing esc on boot and checking if the PC is booting into the lts kernel, if it is then change to the latest current version?

                        GueGuerreiro You might want to try chrooting into your system and repairing whatever package is broken there. Only downside is that you need a live ISO of Solus.
                        See here for a quick HowTo: https://getsol.us/articles/troubleshooting/boot-rescue/en/

                        That being said, if you manage to get around it, could you post the output of the libcrypt error when attempting to rollback with sudo eopkg history -t {whatever version you want to rollback to} -d? there might be some workaround to get it to work

                          curtisy Thank you for that link, might be what saves me in the end.

                          I couldn't get the Solus Live ISO to work just yet, though. It takes a while to get to the greeting screen, and as soon as I login, it eventually crashes and asks me to log out, and it gets stuck. Going into TTY doesn't seem to work either, I just go into a black screen when I try.

                          I think just running Solus, in general, seems to be a problem from my Laptop now :/

                          I still have my work laptop lying around. It's not as powerful, and I like to work on my personal one while remote for that reason, but I think I'll be good for work for a while. I'll try to revisit this topic next weekend. If I can't get to work though, I don't think I can keep using Solus, I'd have to look for something else that works on my PC, which I'm not too excited about.