Black screen upon ISO boot on Intel integrated graphics

Hey everyone, please forgive me as I am sort of a beginner to both Linux and Arch, but here is my issue:

I have burnt the ISO of the Garuda Linux Dragonized version onto a live USB and attempted to boot Garuda from said live USB. However, after the Grub screen and selecting “Boot allowing proprietary drivers (NVIDIA)”, the screen turned black indefinitely, same thing happens when booting with open source drives.

I have then attempted to boot without the “quiet” parameter to see what was going on behind the scenes. The black screen seemed to have occurred after :: Triggering uevents, it was also unresponsive to all key inputs except Ctrl+Alt+Del during the black screen. That seemed strange to me, so I then tested on vanilla Arch and it showed the very same errors and the very same black screen.

After a little bit of help and digging, I have concluded that it was because of an issue with setting up the video card, outline in this Arch Wiki article, stating under the “Background” section:

Previously, setting up the video card was the job of the X server. Because of this, it was not easily possible to have fancy graphics in virtual consoles. Also, each time a switch from X to a virtual console was made (Ctrl+Alt+F2), the server had to give control over the video card to the kernel, which was slow and caused flickering. The same “painful” process happened when the control was given back to the X server (Alt+F7 when X runs in VT7).

With Kernel Mode Setting (KMS), the kernel is now able to set the mode of the video card. This makes fancy graphics during bootup, virtual console and X fast switching possible, among other things.

I managed to bypass the black screen and reach the zsh terminal on vanilla Arch by setting a nomodeset kernel parameter. However, trying this with Garuda did not help at all, with the same black screen appearing after :: Triggering uevents. Furthermore, as far as I understand, setting a nomodeset kernel parameter disables the graphics from being used by the kernel.

With all that being said, here are my specs:
Processor: Intel Core i5-8265U
Hybrid Graphics Cards: Intel UHD Graphics 620, NVIDIA GeForce MX250 (Intel integrated system)

I should also note that this has been a common issue for all Arch and Arch-based distros I’ve tried; all other distros booted flawlessly.

I tried to make my experience as detailed as possible, but please let me know if you’d like me to summarize more moving forward. Thanks in advance!

Hi there, welcome!
It would be really important to have your detailed system specs with the output on inxi -Faz as text, formatted with 3 ~ before and after the text block, although of course you can't do it with the Garuda Live USB. Do you have any other Linux distro on that machine to do that?
Another thing you could do is to check in the Arch Wiki for your precise model.
This is an example for a similar one but most likely not the same:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_IdeaPad_S540_13IML
In addition to that, the usual recommendations:

  • first of all, make sure to have proper BIOS settings: secure boot disabled, fast boot disabled, SATA mode AHCI (if available)
  • verify the iso checksum
  • use another method to burn: Balena Etcher, Ventoy and dd linux command are the preferred ones

Hope this helps...

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:white_check_mark:

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Hi there, welcome!

Thank you!

It would be really important to have your detailed system specs with the output on inxi -Faz as text, formatted with 3 ~ before and after the text block

Below is the output of inxi -Faz running on a temporarily installed Fedora 34 system, although I think it will be sufficient enough to provide my hardware information.

System:
  Kernel: 5.11.12-300.fc34.x86_64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc 
  v: 2.35.1-41.fc34 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=(hd0,gpt5)/vmlinuz-5.11.12-300.fc34.x86_64 
  root=UUID=d4498d05-3f41-45fa-b81d-ed5abdcaaebf ro rootflags=subvol=root 
  rhgb quiet 
  Desktop: GNOME 40.0 tk: GTK 3.24.28 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM 40.0 
  Distro: Fedora release 34 (Thirty Four) 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: HP product: HP Pavilion Laptop 15-cs2xxx 
  v: Type1ProductConfigId serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 
  serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: HP model: 84C1 v: 15.32 serial: <filter> UEFI: Insyde v: F.23 
  date: 12/25/2020 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 41.2 Wh (100.0%) condition: 41.2/41.2 Wh (100.0%) 
  volts: 12.7 min: 11.6 model: HP Primary type: Li-ion serial: N/A 
  status: Full 
CPU:
  Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-8265U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake note: check family: 6 model-id: 8E (142) stepping: B (11) 
  microcode: DE cache: L2: 6 MiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 28800 
  Speed: 2800 MHz min/max: 400/3900 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2800 2: 2798 
  3: 2800 4: 2800 5: 2800 6: 2800 7: 2800 8: 2801 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel WhiskeyLake-U GT2 [UHD Graphics 620] 
  vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 
  chip-ID: 8086:3ea0 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP108M [GeForce MX250] vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
  driver: nouveau v: kernel bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1d13 
  class-ID: 0302 
  Device-3: Lite-On HP Wide Vision HD Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-3:4 chip-ID: 04ca:707f class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter> 
  Display: wayland server: X.Org 1.21.1.1 compositor: gnome-shell driver: 
  loaded: nouveau note: n/a (using device driver) - try sudo/root 
  display-ID: :0 screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x286mm (20.0x11.3") 
  s-diag: 583mm (23") 
  Monitor-1: XWAYLAND0 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 143 
  size: 340x190mm (13.4x7.5") diag: 389mm (15.3") 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 620 (WHL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.0.2 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Cannon Point-LP High Definition Audio 
  vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  alternate: snd_soc_skl,snd_sof_pci bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:9dc8 
  class-ID: 0403 
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.11.12-300.fc34.x86_64 running: yes 
  Sound Server-2: PipeWire v: 0.3.25 running: yes 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Cannon Point-LP CNVi [Wireless-AC] driver: iwlwifi 
  v: kernel port: 5000 bus-ID: 00:14.3 chip-ID: 8086:9df0 class-ID: 0280 
  IF: wlo1 state: up mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 bus-ID: 04:00.0 
  chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200 
  IF: eno1 state: down mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Bluetooth 9460/9560 Jefferson Peak (JfP) type: USB 
  driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-10:5 chip-ID: 8087:0aaa class-ID: e001 
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: see --recommends 
RAID:
  Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci 
  v: 3.0 port: 5060 bus-ID: 00:17.0 chip-ID: 8086.282a rev: 30 
  class-ID: 0104 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 3.52 GiB (1.5%) 
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends 
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Samsung model: MZNLN256HAJQ-000H1 
  size: 238.47 GiB block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B 
  speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 4H3Q scheme: GPT 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 77.12 GiB size: 77.12 GiB (100.00%) 
  used: 3.29 GiB (4.3%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda6 maj-min: 8:6 
  ID-2: /boot raw-size: 1024 MiB size: 975.9 MiB (95.30%) 
  used: 142.8 MiB (14.6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 maj-min: 8:5 
  ID-3: /boot/efi raw-size: 260 MiB size: 256 MiB (98.46%) 
  used: 93.3 MiB (36.5%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 
  ID-4: /home raw-size: 77.12 GiB size: 77.12 GiB (100.00%) 
  used: 3.29 GiB (4.3%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda6 maj-min: 8:6 
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: 100 
  dev: /dev/zram0 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 72.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 52.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 291 Uptime: 4m wakeups: 1 Memory: 11.58 GiB 
  used: 1.69 GiB (14.6%) Init: systemd v: 248 runlevel: 5 
  target: graphical.target tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 11.0.1 
  Packages: N/A note: see --pkg flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.0 
  running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.06
  • first of all, make sure to have proper BIOS settings: secure boot disabled, fast boot disabled, SATA mode AHCI (if available)

Both were disabled before my first post (Sorry I forgot to mention that). I can’t seem to find SATA mode option in my machine’s BIOS settings.

  • verify the iso checksum

Verified and confirmed; the hash was correct.

  • use another method to burn: Balena Etcher, Ventoy and dd linux command are the preferred ones

Tried them all; they all seemed to lead to the same black screen.

I’m very sorry if this seems like a stupid issue; I’ve been attempting to fix this for two days now while constantly scratching my head. I seem to be out of ideas at this point. :frowning:

Edit: I have found in my BIOS settings that my hard drive has the following properties (none of them are changeable):

  • Controller Interface: SATA
  • Controller Type: AHCI
  • Status: NON_RAID
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It doesn’t, at all!
For me issues from the live USB (when BIOS, checks, key etc. are OK) are always the worst.
When you get a black screen on an installed system you have so many options, starting from a retore of a snapshot, continuing with boot to TTY and updating or why not moving to a different kernel…
My only (probably dumb) idea is that I see you have an external monitor: have you tried with both connected and disconnected? I remember other HP models which could not be started unless you connected to an external monitor via HDMI (for some misterious new kernels incompatibilities)…

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My only (probably dumb) idea is that I see you have an external monitor: have you tried with both connected and disconnected? I remember other HP models which could not be started unless you connected to an external monitor via HDMI (for some misterious new kernels incompatibilities)…

I would like to try that, but unfortunately, I believe you are mistaken, I do not actually have an external monitor with me.

On another note, I saw some logs similar to the ones seen when vanilla Arch boots up when I deleted the “quite” kernel parameter, but they were scrolling too fast for me to catch; the logs were immediately followed by the black screen. Might there be a way for me to perhaps pause and view them in order to allow us to diagnose the problem better? I also tried Ctrl+Alt+F1 and Ctrl+Alt+F2 during the black screen phase, but they remain unresponsive, while, interestingly enough, still being responsive to Ctrl+Alt+Del.

New ISO do not use quiet, IIRC :slight_smile:

Which ISO you try to install?
Full ISO name, please.

BIOS up-to-date (date: 12/25/2020) ?

If nvidia driver dos not boot use free driver , you can install nvidia later.

One thing you could do, just temporarily, to verify possible incompatibility with the latest kernel versions, is to try with the Barebones edition (which uses LTS)

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Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Which ISO you try to install?
Full ISO name, please.

Below is the full default name of the downloaded Garuda Dragonized edition ISO, straight from the official website, along with its file extension.

garuda-dr460nized-linux-zen-210809.iso

BIOS up-to-date (date: 12/25/2020) ?

Just checked, there was in-fact, an update, but that didn’t seem to resolve my issue after the update’s installation.

If nvidia driver dos not boot use free driver , you can install nvidia later.

Forgive my ignorance, but do you perhaps mean selecting the “boot with free (open source) drivers” within Garuda’s grub screen? If so, I have already tried that, the results were unfortunately the same.

As per your suggestion, I went ahead and tried booting into the barebones edition, and to my surprise, it booted without issue and I made it to the "create a username and password" screen! I'm a bit perplex as to why, though, since I do not quite understand the inner workings of the dragonized editions.

But at least this confirms that my machine should be compatible with the latest kernel, which is still progress. Thank you!

PS: I believe I booted with the "free (open source) driver" option for the barebones edition. I saw from my inxi -Faz that my graphics driver is a Nouveau, which means I should be booting with this option moving forward, correct?

well barebones and xfce edition use lts kernel while others use zen kernel.

it seems your pc has problems with newer kernel.

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well barebones and xfce edition use lts kernel while others use zen kernel.

I see, thanks for the clarification. Perhaps this means my pc is incompatible with the Zen kernel? If so, it should mean I’m unable to use the dragonized edition of Garuda?

You can use the barebones edition and make it dragonized with the customization packages.
And then continue using LTS kernel or try if other kernel work for you.
:wink:

This may help : Garuda Linux / Themes and Settings / Settings / garuda-dr460nized · GitLab

I suppose I could give it a try if all else fails, but I would rather have the Dragonized version shipped from the team as, from what I've heard, the Garuda team does not provide official support for the barebones edition. That and I don't quite have the confidence to heavily customize on my part yet as I'm quite new to the Linux world.

Thank you for providing the GitLab repo, by the way!

I fully understand your concerns on the support with the Barebones, I hope a new kernel will come up compatible with your system and then a future ISO including it.
For the moment I think you could install Garuda-dr460nized-config and your system should become almost equivalent to the Dr460nized ed.
I think you could also install the Nvidia drivers with the tools in the Garuda assistant, Hardware assistant.

This gave me enough confidence to try it out. I think I'm able to figure it out on my own from here on out using wikis and general Googling. Can't wait to learn more using your awesome distro!

Thank you all so much for your help. I learned a lot during this whole troubleshooting process, however painful it might have been. Keep on doing what you're doing, guys, you're doing great!

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Good choice!
And in the future, in case of any discussions on the fact that you are on the Barebones, do not hesitate to link this post or ping me to confirm that you necessarily had to do in this way, so you deserve all the normal support from the team and devs (I can't do much more than this :wink:)

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Thank you so much. I will keep that in mind. This is very thoughtful of you!

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Hope this helps:

Ps: It was garuda-dr460nized instead of garuda-dr460nized-config :blush:

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