Help ! With Linux Mint 18.3

[Markfw]

OK, small progress on windows. THE CLOCK WAS WRONG, SO ALL THE PPD NUMBERS WERE CRAP !!!!!!

I fixed that and we are back to 1.85m ppd.

Now as far as fixing unix ? No idea at this point. Maybe I will do a scratch install and blow away what we have, unless you guys have any other ideas, this is odd.

 

[tiwake]

This thread confirms to me that NVIDIA does not care about linux at all, and makes me feel much better for buying an AMD videocard. In-kernel open source drivers are so nice. The only down side is the OpenCL open source drivers (ROCm) are not able to run folding@home yet. AMD just landed a whole huge pile of code for the 4.15 kernel that will help with this whole process a lot, so over the next 6 months I would not be surprised if open source OpenCL AMD drivers were also mainlined and made to work with folding@home.

 

[Markfw]

This thread confirms to me that NVIDIA does not care about linux at all, and makes me feel much better for buying an AMD videocard. In-kernel open source drivers are so nice. The only down side is the OpenCL open source drivers (ROCm) are not able to run folding@home yet. AMD just landed a whole huge pile of code for the 4.15 kernel that will help with this whole process a lot, so over the next 6 months I would not be surprised if open source OpenCL AMD drivers were also mainlined and made to work with folding@home.

I would have to disagree. Aside from my last install, all the others went flawlessly, once I knew the correct procedure. Until I figure out what wrong with the last install, there is no basis for your conclusions.

 

[tiwake]

I would have to disagree. Aside from my last install, all the others went flawlessly, once I knew the correct procedure. Until I figure out what wrong with the last install, there is no basis for your conclusions.

This started with the nvidia 900 series cards because NVIDIA decided it was a really good idea to require driver signing, further cutting off the open source drivers from being able to function. The open source drivers don't work at all because its by design on nvidia's behalf.

That and EGLstreams and wayland. Wayland was under development for several years when Nvidia shows up with a huge patch trying to change the entire codebase of wayland, going against the reason why wayland even exists. Could NVIDIA have said something about it while it was being developed from the start? There are many many steamed developers over this.

There are a couple other smaller things I don't like about nvidia, but I really don't want to go all-out rant mode and even more derail this thread... heh.

 

[biodoc]

Well I woke up in the middle of the night and started thinking about this again. I'm back to the /etc/default/grub file again. The grub command "quiet splash" which is in the default installation displays the high resolution and cool looking Linux mint logo during the boot process before X and the nvidia driver are loaded. Some video cards can handle this but others can't so the latter ends with a failure of lightdm and the black screen. Replacing "quiet splash" with "nomodeset" or "text" should solve this problem. "nomodeset" forces screen resolution to be the same as the resolution as in bios. "text" forces a good old fashion text boot where you see each command as it executes.

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

change this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

to this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset"

CTRL+ o to save file (letter o)
CTRL + x to exit nano

sudo update-grub

sudo reboot

 

[Markfw]

Well I woke up in the middle of the night and started thinking about this again. I'm back to the /etc/default/grub file again. The grub command "quiet splash" which is in the default installation displays the high resolution and cool looking Linux mint logo during the boot process before X and the nvidia driver are loaded. Some video cards can handle this but others can't so the latter ends with a failure of lightdm and the black screen. Replacing "quiet splash" with "nomodeset" or "text" should solve this problem. "nomodeset" forces screen resolution to be the same as the resolution as in bios. "text" forces a good old fashion text boot where you see each command as it executes.

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

change this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

to this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset"

CTRL+ o to save file (letter o)
CTRL + x to exit nano

sudo update-grub

sudo reboot

well, the logo went away, and the little dots, and replaced by a lot of text. Once the text was done, black screen.

 

[StefanR5R]

Maybe try the display manager restart again :

Perhaps the display manager crashed? Next time that happens try CTL +ALT + F1 to get to a whole screen terminal. Then log in and run:
sudo service mdm restart

I googled and found that mint dropped mdm in version 18.2 and now uses lightdm

try

sudo service lightdm restart

 

[Markfw]

BTW, in all of these cases, the black screen does have a very perfect graphical mouse cursor that moves as I move the mouse.

What about this I found ?:

1. Desperate Mode. If you cannot get a graphical user interface with this parameter and/or an 'Monitor frequency error' there is an alternate way (as always in linux). This situation may happen if you have replaced your video card, or the the driver needs additional parameters (I suffered it with a intel chipset)
   1. Use a lower resolution but highly compatible vesa driver. In the same line described in step 3 add this second video mode parameter (grub_gfxmode=). You may use one of them
      • grub_gfxmode=1280x1024x24 (in most large modern monitors)
      • grub_gfxmode=1024x768x16 (1024x768 is safer in older or smaller systems)
      • Many other settings are possible as: grub_gfxmode=vesa (...or vga

 

[Markfw]

Then I found this,(which is closer as I have a mouse cursor) https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=126293

And I think the fix was:
"sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

Edit:That didn't work

 

[biodoc]

BTW, in all of these cases, the black screen does have a very perfect graphical mouse cursor that moves as I move the mouse.

What about this I found ?:

1. Desperate Mode. If you cannot get a graphical user interface with this parameter and/or an 'Monitor frequency error' there is an alternate way (as always in linux). This situation may happen if you have replaced your video card, or the the driver needs additional parameters (I suffered it with a intel chipset)
   1. Use a lower resolution but highly compatible vesa driver. In the same line described in step 3 add this second video mode parameter (grub_gfxmode=). You may use one of them
      • grub_gfxmode=1280x1024x24 (in most large modern monitors)
      • grub_gfxmode=1024x768x16 (1024x768 is safer in older or smaller systems)
      • Many other settings are possible as: grub_gfxmode=vesa (...or vga

Sounds good. Go for it!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Markfw]

OK, exciting maybe ? now when I ctrl-atl-F! I see a screen full of errors
failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
(A LOT OF STUFF/NUMBERS) AND ata BUS ERROR

 

[biodoc]

OK, exciting maybe ? now when I ctrl-atl-F! I see a screen full of errors
failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
(A LOT OF STUFF/NUMBERS) AND ata BUS ERROR

Sorry double post!

See post below.

 

[biodoc]

failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

Could be a sign of hard drive failure??

 

[biodoc]

I'm thinking mint 17.3 would be a better choice than mint 18.3. I see a lot of problems out there with 18.3.

I'm running 17.3 which is very stable. Clearly I'm grasping for straws here to solve your problem!

 

[Pokey]

I'm thinking mint 17.3 would be a better choice than mint 18.3. I see a lot of problems out there with 18.3.

I'm running 17.3 which is very stable. Clearly I'm grasping for straws here to solve your problem!

With my problem rigs all I did was drop back to 18.1 on DVD disk. I don't know which did the trick but that was all it took. I then "updated" to 18.3 afterward.
This is quite the rabbit hole...................

Oh and one other thing: I was using small (80GB) old HDDs on two units that had a history of spontaneous reboots. I cloned to a couple of other less old HDD and the reboots quit happening. So the HDD could very well be the culprit.

 

[Markfw]

I was told that with dual 1080ti cards. I had to use 18.3. Also, I see this in forums.linuxmint.com:

Experience has taught me that the xorg and proprietary drivers from AMD do not play nice together. I always end up with two panels, then three after a reboot, then four...

After much head-banging into the brick wall of my windowless cell in the asylum, I always purge the xorg drivers first:

Code: Select all

$ sudo apt-get remove --purge xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-radeon
$ sudo reboot
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install fglrx-amdcccle-updates
$ sudo aticonfig --initial
$ sudo reboot


Problem solved. I've never had any trouble after installing the AMD proprietary drivers using that method.

I am going to try this next. I have an AMD system (1950x threadripper)

 

[Markfw]

I tried everything. Going to start from scratch one more time

 

[Markfw]

OK, a fresh install using my own instructions with one change. After the first install, I have to reboot in compatibility mode. But its back to folding in 45 minutes (plus 2 hours debugging before that, and a few hours yesterday down)

 

[Ken g6]

failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

Could be a sign of hard drive failure??

My old Linux system liked to lock the SSD filesystem occasionally. I had to schedule a fsck for that drive and reboot. The drive never really failed though.

 

[Markfw]

BTW, whole config of this box
1950X Threadriper@stock 3500 under full load, all 32 cores(threads)
3200 CL14 memory 4 x 8 gig
X399 Taichi motherboard;
Samsung 960 NVME drive.
400 gig sata (not sure the brand, circa 2007, but only running for 40 hours in 2007 and idle since)
Dual 1080TI EVGA FTW3's

2.45 million ppd, total farm, 12.6 million ppd

I am not converting the other 3 AMD boxes until this one can prove stable. Then all the boxes that are folding only will be done.

 

[Markfw]

Well, I figured something out. Once you have installed everything on an AMD system, if you ever reboot, you will have to reinstall everything again, until I can figure out the mouse only problem.

 

[StefanR5R]

Since lightdm has been implicated in the black-screen-with-mouse-only problem: Is it possible to replace lightdm by a different display manager? ... If I type "display manager" into software manager's search box on Mint 18.3, half a dozen alternatives pop up.

 

[Markfw]

Since lightdm has been implicated in the black-screen-with-mouse-only problem: Is it possible to replace lightdm by a different display manager? ... If I type "display manager" into software manager's search box on Mint 18.3, half a dozen alternatives pop up.

Got me... biodoc ?

 

[Markfw]

OK, new try. Below is the list I did NOT run, its running 2.5 million, lets let it run and see if it does not reboot, or if it does, if it still works: (the menu install for drivers includes the openCL and cuda)

sudo apt-get install nvidia-opencl-icd-387

sudo apt-get install libcuda1-387

sudo apt-get -y install python-gnome2 mesa-common-dev freeglut3-dev nvidia-settings gedit

sudo nvidia-xconfig -a --cool-bits=28 --allow-empty-initial-configuration

cd ~

gedit fancontrols

and add and then save (for 2 video cards)

nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/GPUFanControlState=1
nvidia-settings -a [fan:0]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:1]/GPUFanControlState=1
nvidia-settings -a [fan:1]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100

 

[biodoc]

OK, new try. Below is the list I did NOT run, its running 2.5 million, lets let it run and see if it does not reboot, or if it does, if it still works: (the menu install for drivers includes the openCL and cuda)

sudo apt-get install nvidia-opencl-icd-387

sudo apt-get install libcuda1-387

sudo apt-get -y install python-gnome2 mesa-common-dev freeglut3-dev nvidia-settings gedit

sudo nvidia-xconfig -a --cool-bits=28 --allow-empty-initial-configuration

cd ~

gedit fancontrols

and add and then save (for 2 video cards)

nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/GPUFanControlState=1
nvidia-settings -a [fan:0]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:1]/GPUFanControlState=1
nvidia-settings -a [fan:1]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100

Double post again. Sorry