Undefined Video Mode Number error message on net boot

sgray · Post by **sgray** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:44 am

I dont expect a step-by-step fix, but if someone knows which direction to send me, a quick pointer would be appreciated.

m/board=intel d815efv (uatx, int aud/vid/lan)
cpu=p3/1.0ghz
ram=512mb
video=integrated 815 series
audio=integrated ad1885 (i think)
lan= integrated 82562 (e100 i think)

I am running the RAM fs version of minimyth-0.21.0-62b5. It boots off the network and pulls the pxeconfig for this box just fine...boots rootfs without a problem...boots kernel without a problem...then says "undefined video mode number: 312" and reports "nothing left to do in this runlevel" and drops to a login prompt.

I have passed various 'vga=' flags on the boot config and the video error disappears, but I still get dropped to a login prompt with the "nothing left to do..." message.

Any ideas?

I can run the utils to probe the hardware if need be, but the board and chipset have been around for a while now and should be well-supported.

FYI- I know this is not the desired/supported/intended/etc platform to run MM on. I have an abundance of this hardware lying around and am just tinkering with the Minimyth front-end and how it interacts with my existing backend box before putting together a spec for the final frontend machines.

Thanks again.

Post by **Pablo** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:04 am

MiniMyth uses the vesafb driver to display a 'pretty' splash screen. Sadly, some early Intel graphics hardware is not Vesa compatible (I find this rather odd/pathetic). Therefore, it is likely that the the i815 graphics hardware is not compatible with the Vesa frame buffer driver.

You might try adding 'debug' (without the quote marks (')) to your boot line. This should cause MiniMyth to bypass the 'pretty' splash screen. As a result, it might let you get further.

Also, if you are able to boot any Linux distribution, then could you post the output of the command

Code: Select all

lspci -mn

Having this output will make it easier for me to make sure that MiniMyth includes the drivers needed by your hardware.

sgray · Post by **sgray** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:19 am

That makes sense. I inserted the debug flag and got a nice verbose fly-by of what was going on at boot. I have not captured it all as of yet, but the last few lines are here:

intel 8x0: clocking to 41149
INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel
Login:

sgray · Post by **sgray** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:52 am

Pablo, I PM'd you the output of 'lspci -mn' on this board. Hope it is of value.

I'm still not sure where to go with my problem of dropping to the login prompt.

BTW- If I can be of any assistance to you at all in providing simple reports like this, I would be more than happy to do so. Currently, most of the boards I have immediate access to contain Intel 965, 865, and 815 chipsets. I can access newer and older ones if need be.

sgray · Post by **sgray** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:13 am

UPDATE: after taking a close look at the logs, I found some errors that I have been fixing, so I am getting further, however I have one issue I can't seem to understand.

The variable MM_DHCP_TCODE='America/Chicago' in my minimyth.conf was always failing. So I moved it to the boot config and it still failed. When I removed the ' ' hash marks from it in the boot config, it no longer failed. Interesting...

Post by **Pablo** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:29 am

sgray wrote:The variable MM_DHCP_TCODE='America/Chicago' in my minimyth.conf was always failing. So I moved it to the boot config and it still failed. When I removed the ' ' hash marks from it in the boot config, it no longer failed. Interesting...

Odd. It should work in your minimyth.conf. I checked it recently and it was working. I will have to check it again.

However, the reason for it failing on your boot line with the single quotes. Configuration on the boot line must either be unquoted or enclosed in double quoted (").

Is it the case that you need to use debug to disable the splash screen in order to boot?

Post by **Pablo** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:33 am

sgray wrote:Pablo, I PM'd you the output of 'lspci -mn' on this board. Hope it is of value.

Thanks. A quick look indicates that the hardware should be supported (with the exception of vesafb, which may not support the earlier Intel video).

I'm still not sure where to go with my problem of dropping to the login prompt.

If you get a login prompt and can login at the console or via telnet, then there may be something interesting in either /var/log/messages or /var/log/minimyth.err.log (if it exists).

sgray · Post by **sgray** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:28 am

Thanks Pablo.

Thats pretty much what I've been up to here...I've been going through and resolving all the errors until the log file was clean.

Right now, the minimyth.err.log is empty and the minimyth.log still has some tftp 'file not found' errors but it doesn't say what it is trying to access.

CURRENTLY, it boots and actually starts X and has a cursor, it asks you to choose a language (US English) and you press enter and it goes back to the login: prompt.

I will PM you a copy of my minimyth.conf should you have any desire to view my insane config.

I really do appreciate your pointers.