Re: [Libreboot] Unable to boot after upgrading from Trisquel 6.1 to Trisquel 7

[Daniel Tarrero]

hi folks!

im not using Triskel, so take that like a general linux advice (there can be
better ways i dont know =)

if i understand u well:
- you had an updated Triskel 6.1 over Linux 3.2.0 working like a charm.
- you did run "do-release-upgrade" and it ended with errors.
- do-release-upgrade didnt request for password.
- you rebooted and now it stucks on boot, in the very beginning

-----
what i see and understand in this screenshot are some i915 errors,
nothing to get scared i thing.

DRM returns some errors about "your VideoBIOS is not signed".
"Digital Rights Management" is there to protect copyrights, probably
Triskel dont use this.

in fact, it keep loading but gives a couple "page table error", so
finally it falls back to FB (framebuffer).

so: it try to load video module/driver, it fails, it falls back to
"almost everywhere compatible FrameBuffer video module", but video looks
like the Blade's movie vampire rave ^^

-----
my bet is that init.rd (or other crucial piece in the early boot stages)
didnt got properly updated, specially the video stuff.

in fact, i bet it's something to do with video (maybe Triskel "flashes"
video bios in the "do-release-upgrade" process? nobody knows ^^)

is the system anyway accesible? does it respond to network ping?
ctrl+alt+F1? ctrl+alt+supr? SysReq?

next time, when something goes wrong with a system update, dont reboot.
Look everywhere for messages and info about what happend =) 
-----

something that i would do: look for the "upgrade" error messages if
any:

- boot from USB (good you can do it :)
- mount your unbootable root partition wherever
- chroot into there
- find "do-release-upgrade" and edit and see what it does (somebody
  knows where is the source, is it the same as in Ubuntu? can it fit into
  an email attachment ;)
- look for logs:
- tail -n 50 /var/log/messages
- tail -n 50 /var/log/syslog
- tail -n 50 /var/log/kern.log

If in doubt, stop here, look for more advice and knowledge, send all you find :)

If you see what this script does, and understand the error, probably you
can fix it, within this chroot, just re-running the script "do-release-upgrade".

*****

i dont know details from Triskel yet :), u know, but sudo can be configured to
ask for password, or not; also can be configured not to ask for password for
specific commands (you can tell it "dont ask me password when sudo want to run
"do-release-upgrade"). Dont know if that the case.

anything related to change system packages, kernel, init.rd, boot
manager, file systems: requires root

*****

Regards,
D

On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 12:13:39AM +0100, Niall Dooley wrote:
> Sometime ago, I ran into an issue with my Libreboot X60s upgrading from
> Trisquel 6.1 to Trisquel 7! I backed up my entire home folder, updated, and
> upgraded using aptitude my 6.1 install. I also re-booted my machine to use
> the latest kernel (3.2.0-93-generic if I remember correctly) that was
> installed with that last upgrade. I then proceeded to upgrade to Trisquel 7
> (via tty1) by executing 'do-release-upgrade' as recommended. Strangely, I
> was not prompted to run as sudo which I would have expected. Anyway, the
> upgrade appeared to progress as expected yet when it finally 'finished'
> there were messages stating that their were errors with the upgrade. I
> assumed due to these errors (whatever their cause) my system would remain
> on 6.1. Now, I'm in the situation where my machine starts to boot up,
> attempts to load the OS but then hangs at some point in the process with
> the screen displaying some startup messages but flashing making it
> difficult to read what they say. I capture what I could in the attached.
> 
> I was running the 20150208 version of Libreboot as I hadn't upgraded to
> 20150508 as if I'm not mistaken no longer supported Trisquel 6. In any case
> I don't suspect Libreboot as the boot process does start.
> 
> If I boot Trisquel 7 from a USB everything seems to work fine.
> 
> Can anyone make sense of the attached errors? I wasn't able to find much in
> a search online.
> 
> Any help would be appreciated.
> 
> Niall
> 
> irc: doolio