[Solved] MX 18.3 USB boots on Lenovo x200s, but not on x200t

[JayM]

The reason is that I have what sounds like the same behavior on my desktop system with the antiX 19 alphas and beta 1 on a Live USB boot, and on mine the black screen eventually goes away and leaves me at a console login prompt, and as antiX uses slim, not lightdm, it would be very interesting to find out that the problem I had wasn't with slim but was with something that's in common with antiX and MX. That might be just the data that the devs need to figure out what's wrong in both distros.

Another thing to try if you never get dropped to a console automatically is doing a control alt F1 and see if you can force it to a console, or if ignores your keystrokes and does nothing.

[trebor]

Tried booting the Live-USB with different options. It seems, that there is a problem with Xorg.

Details:
-booting with default options or load=all or noxorg -> black screen, no input, no output, even after 20 minutes
-booting with safe video or failsafe or nomodeset -> black screen with prompt, can switch to console with Ctrl+Alt+F1

After switching to console the command "startx" shows error-messages. Some of them are:

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 waited 2020 ms for i915.ko driver to load 

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 xinit: unable to connect to X server 

By the way, I can boot an antix-Live-USB (using slim as desktop-manager) on the issue-machine x200t without any problems.

[JayM]

Instead of startx try lightdm. If that doesn't work, when logged in at the console please run

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inxi -Fxrz

then copy the results, paste them into a text document, save it to a USB stick then post them here wrapped inside of [code] [/code] tags. If lightdm does start and you get the GUI desktop, run Quick System Info which does the same inxi command and paste the results here.

[trebor]

Booting with settings "safe video" or "failsafe" or "nomodest" running "lightdm" as root did not work, but running "inxi -Fxrz" produced the following:

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System:
  Host: mx1 Kernel: 4.9.0-9-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 6.3.0 
  Console: tty 1 Distro: MX-18.3_x64 Continuum May 26  2019 
  base: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 7449C4G v: ThinkPad X200 Tablet 
  serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 7449C4G serial: <filter> BIOS: LENOVO 
  v: 7WET70WW (3.20 ) date: 12/13/2011 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 36.7 Wh condition: 39.3/63.4 Wh (62%) 
  model: SANYO 42T4564 status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core2 Duo L9400 bits: 64 type: MCP 
  arch: Penryn rev: A L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 7447 
  Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/1867 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics vendor: Lenovo 
  driver: N/A bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Display: server: X.org 1.19.2 driver: intel tty: 80x25 
  Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console for root. 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 82801I HD Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel 
  v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.9.0-9-amd64 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel 82567LM Gigabit Network vendor: Lenovo driver: e1000e 
  v: 3.2.6-k port: 1840 bus ID: 00:19.0 
  IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Intel Ultimate N WiFi Link 5300 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel 
  port: 1c60 bus ID: 03:00.0 
  IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-3: Ericsson Business Mobile Networks BV F3507g Mobile Broadband 
  Module 
  type: USB driver: cdc_acm,cdc_ether,cdc_wdm bus ID: 8-4:3 
  IF: wwan0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 206.33 GiB used: 4.62 GiB (2.2%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD1600BEVS-08VAT2 
  size: 149.05 GiB temp: 29 C 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Ultra Fit size: 57.28 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 2.97 GiB used: 146.7 MiB (4.8%) fs: overlay source: ERR-102 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0 C mobo: 40.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2355 
Repos:
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list 
  1: deb http://iso.mxrepo.com/antix/stretch stretch main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
  1: deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ stretch-updates main contrib non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
  1: deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free
  2: deb http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
  1: deb http://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/mxlinux/packages/mx/repo/ stretch main non-free
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
Info:
  Processes: 142 Uptime: 1m Memory: 3.76 GiB used: 151.6 MiB (3.9%) 
  Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 6.3.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.12 
  inxi: 3.0.33

[JayM]

Well, I'm stumped. Being as how the x200t is a tablet, not a standard laptop like your x200s is, may have something to do with it due to the different video hardware for the touchscreen, but I don't know. Normally Intel onboard GPUs are the least troublesome to get working in Linux.

I read where people, after flashing their BIOS to the latest version available, experienced an issue where the BIOS flash went flawlessly but when they rebooted they'd get a black screen for anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, then it would finally boot. Maybe something similar is happening here? Maybe try just leaving it at that black screen for up to an hour to see if it eventually boots?

Another possibility is if your Live USB was burned using MX Luve USB Maker in full-featured mode, try reburning the iso in read-only dd mode and see if that makes any difference. Otherwise I don't know what to suggest.

Devs? Anyone? Help?

[JayM]

I did find this:
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Thinkpad
I see that the x200 isn't listed though the x220 and higher are, so perhaps the x200's hardware simply isn't supported for Debian-based distros. But again, I don't know as I don't own one of these devices.

[san-claudio]

I have a laptop Lenovo Thinkpad X220 and X230 with distribution MX Linux 18.3 works well on it and on the X220 for several years ...

[KBD]

I'm not at all familiar with the Penryn cpu, obviously there is a graphics problem.
I'd try booting the newest Ubuntu and Fedora distros to see if they have firmware, or something that agrees better with the machine. Ubuntu especially as it is supposed to have touch screen support.

[trebor]

inxi -Fxrz on x200t running MX Live-USB using option "safe video" -> black screen, prompt, can switch to console, "sudo service lightdm start" seems to work, but there are no graphics, black screen with prompt instead

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Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics vendor: Lenovo 
  driver: N/A bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Display: server: X.org 1.19.2 driver: intel tty: 80x25 
  Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console for root. 

inxi -Fxrz on x200t running antix-Live-USB -> graphics and touchpen are working OOTB!

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Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics vendor: Lenovo driver: i915
  v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Display: server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1280x800~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Mobile Intel GM45 Express x86/MMX/SSE2 v: 2.1 Mesa 13.0.6 
  direct render: Yes 

inxi -Fxrz on x200s running MX Live-USB using default settings -> runs great on that machine!

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Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 
           v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: intel resolution: 1440x900~50Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Mobile Intel GM45 Express v: 2.1 Mesa 18.2.6 
           direct render: Yes 

At the moment I can only boot MX-Live-USB on issue-machine x200t to a console using failsafe-settings in the boot-menu. It seems, that graphics-driver i915 is not loaded then, as we can see above. Is it possible to load that driver manually for testing purpose?

[fehlix]

By the way, I can boot an antix-Live-USB (using slim as desktop-manager) on the issue-machine x200t without any problems.

Why not trying to use antiX 4.9er kernel on MX Linux, either install from
MX Pacackge installer -> Populare app -> Kernel -> "antiX 4.9.176"
or potenially even the newer kernel antix 4.9.182 manually:

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sudo apt install  linux-headers-4.9.182-antix.1-amd64-smp linux-image-4.9.182-antix.1-amd64-smp

and update dkms by running:

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/usr/share/mx-packageinstaller-pkglist/rebuild_dkms_packages.sh linux-image-4.9.182-antix.1-amd64-smp

And do remaster, reboot and live-kernel-updater to choose the antiX-kernel for live boot.