This is caused by the same symptom that causes bug#1951 - the free installs create an initrd which does not contain the firmware from the nonfree radeon-firmware package. However, in the case of this chip the consequences are considerably more severe, for two reasons. First, this isn't just an eventually-terminating loop that eventually ends in the DM coming up. It causes a hard freeze at about the time getty is being launched. Hard, as in no magic keys and time to hit the power button. Second, this does not appear to be related to using the X server, as I have recreated the hang after using a rescue disk to set the runlevel in inittab to 3. Just in case systemd was ignoring inittab, I tried with init=/sbin/init as a kernel parm with the same result. If I'm interpreting this correctly, the we have a major problem. The lack-of-firmware problem exhibits with a range of ATI chips, and in the case of this chip, it manifests with a different and more serious symptom in text console mode without X involved. As this chip is relatively new compared to the chips that just exhibited the loop, it is likely that other more current ATI chips will exhibit the more serious behavior. Or, possibly the behavior is random based on the chip characteristics, and these are only two examples. So the usual mantra of let-them-use-VESA until they enable nonfree on their own isn't going to work. They'll never get to X on their first boot. The machine involved is an Acer Aspire One 722 acquired from Walmart. I have a test partition available, and if anyone would like tests run, just post them here.
Depends on: (none) => 3466
CC: (none) => doktor5000, marja11
CC: (none) => anssi.hannula, tmb
@ Frank Was it any better with a Mga2b2 free install?
Keywords: (none) => NEEDINFOCC: (none) => thierry.vignaud
(In reply to comment #1) > @ Frank > > Was it any better with a Mga2b2 free install? Forget about that question, I wasn't very awake when I asked it. Please read https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3466#c67 The packages: drakx-kbd-mouse-x11-0.100-1.mga2 ldetect-lst-0.1.300-1.mga2 should also solve this bug and those or even better versions will go into Mga2b3, expected to be released on April 14th Please test
I'll give it a try, thanks.
Mga2b3 is available since a few days. We're looking forward to your feedback.
This bug is actually made redundant by https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3466 and a few others that have had recent progress. Anssi solved the original problem noted here, but only got a boot to runlevel 3 due to a segfault in X. I believe the current situation is that a fresh install boot with many (but not all) ATI cards will boot to tty. If at that point, you either tweak kernel parameters or install the needed firmware, X will work. As this is a work-in-progress under these other bugs, I'm cloing this one as a duplicate. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 3466 ***
Status: NEW => RESOLVEDResolution: (none) => DUPLICATE
CC: doktor5000 => (none)