Display weird behavior (resolution?) on startup. Messed up screen

[linuxislife]

@ricklinux

you’d have to remove one at a time

that’s what i was thinking… even if not the finest strategy i guess

@ricklinux

Have you tried nomodeset?

no i did not

@ricklinux

running on the kernel module not the Intel

not really sure how to do that yet, we did remove the xf86-video-intel module with @BONK but then it couldn’t boot light display manager

[ricklinux]

As far as i know you shouldn’t need the xf86-video-intel but need to make sure not loading intel. If you get a black screen maybe try.

systemctl set-default graphical.target

[linuxislife]

is it fx86 or xf86 ? (typo or different?)

well, adding nomodeset seems to made the trick… i will confirm in a couple of reboot

i should also get rid of xf86-video-intel i guess (is it what nomodeset does?)

[ricklinux]

Ya that was a typo…sorry.

[linuxislife]

@manuel

changing display manager to sddm might be worth trying

to give @manuel some credit, switching to sddm is apparently working too (with the initial buggy config of course, without adding nomodeset or anything)

i will try to remove xf86-video-intel for good (or just leaving nomodeset added would be sufficiant in the long run?)

[ricklinux]

From my understanding and I’m no expert nomodeset stops the kernel from loading video drivers until x starts? Maybe someone can correct me if I’m wrong. The xf86-video-intel is the intel driver as far as i know also.

Edit: Yes @manuel deserves a lot of credit! He knows more than i do that’s for sure!

[ricklinux]

Did you already have sddm installed when you used nomodeset? Or you tried that after doing that first without it?

[linuxislife]

No i did not have sddm installed when i first tried nomodeset
it was a fresh install, without an added package (default live install + xfce)
i did undo the grub changes and installed sddm form endeavour welcome screen afterward just cause while i had my hands dirty i wanted to see ^^
(when i first experienced the problem on the previous “test” install, i remember trying other dm with the same result, but probably didn’t try sddm (it’s the last on the list lol) but i guess i’ll stick with lightdm if nomodeset does the trick… even if i guess i don’t care about dm)

[linuxislife]

Thank you guys a lot for your time by the way !
I heard Endeavour community was outstanding and for my first shot i can confirm it definitely looks more than that !! (nobody yelled at me for not trying nomodeset on my own for example …yet ^^ )

Is it possible to mark different posts as solution btw ?

[ricklinux]

So you did another fresh install of Xfce? Offline or Online install? This comes with Lightdm as the Display Manager. Did you get the garbled screen? Then did you try removing the xf86-video-intel and see?

So what did you end up with and does it work for you currently?

To mark the post as solved you just click on the three … and check solution on the post you feel that solved it.

Edit:
Not sure you can select more than one so it may be better to post a final solution and mark it solved.

[ricklinux]

I was going to ask you to post what this command shows.

inxi -Ga

[linuxislife]

so only one solution can be chosen i guess ?

And no no, i didn’t try to solve the problem on the first install were it appears.
Was a couple of weeks ago, on the same machine but with another drive. Didn’t address it, cause, then, I got yet another drive (and the “first” install went away with the drive on another machine), and i just installed endeavour on it (not from the same installer than the first time, as it got updated on the website since, not with the same file system, still with a wondows (yeah i know) dual boot, and still Online install… oh and still xfce (with lightdm as default indeed).

The garbled screen appeared again (but, on still that same machine, i still have the original HDD, running endeavour live install xfce lightdm, up to date (but installed with yet another previous installer version) and i never experience that weird screen, and i will go check right now if nomodeset is in the instruction… which i don’t recall changing ever).

So, yeah, the screen appeared (maybe not on the first reboot, but can’t be sure) and after looking (again, cause i did too the first time with the other SSD) i decided to post here.

So @BONK suggested to get rid of xf86-video-intel. Which lead to the "failed, lightdm can’t be loaded’ (or somthg like that) message. Probably cause i didn’t make sure that intel wasn’t called anymore as you later point out.

Then @manuel suggested to switch to sddm, which i didn’t try before trying all the kernel instructions with you.

But returning to the buggy state (default instructions, lightdm, scrambled screen) i decided to give sddm a try, and it did the trick to. Didn’t try other dm though.

So, long story short, so far (default live xfce install):
nomodeset does the trick
or
sddm does the trick

will try other dm and investigate that intel driver i guess (or getting rid of it)

[linuxislife]

@ricklinux

what this command shows.

inxi -Ga

Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 620 vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: N/A 
  alternate: i915 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:5916 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: Cheng Uei Precision Industry (Foxlink) HP TrueVision HD Camera 
  type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-5:2 chip-ID: 05c8:03ba class-ID: 0e02 
  serial: 0001 
  Display: x11 server: X.org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: intel,vesa 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting resolution: <missing: xdpyinfo> 
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.1.0 256 bits) v: 4.5 Mesa 21.0.3 
  compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 

[ricklinux]

Some of the Intel conf files for xorg may also work but you’d have to experiment and soon there will be the 5.12 kernel so you’ll see if anything changes also along with mesa.

[linuxislife]

Getting rid of xf86-video-intel will probably help as @BONK suggested.
But then,

@ricklinux

you need to be running on the kernel module not the Intel so you would need to make sure it’s not loading intel

It is good to note that

@manuel

changing display manager to sddm might be worth trying

and yes, it make the issue go away.

But if you want to stick with lightdm (or another dm showing the issue) then

nomodeset

@ricklinux

add that to the default grub command line in /etc/default/grub and update grub with
sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

is “solving” the issue.

Thank you all guys for the collegial help ! I’ll let you know as well if

@ricklinux

Some of the Intel conf files for xorg may also work but you’d have to experiment and soon there will be the 5.12 kernel so you’ll see if anything changes also along with mesa.

[linuxislife]

hey

So… i didn’t realize at first, but not using the graphic driver, with the help of nomodeset, no longer allow to set the brightness of the screen (no more option to do that in the settings or with the keyboard shortcuts). I don’t know if other options are missing, but there’s that.

So at the moment the best solution is to use sddm instead of lightdm.

Again, i don’t know the exact cause of the bug, as booting from the other hard-drive with lightdm, intel driver and the same grub config (no addition of nomodeset) never leads to the faulty display.