Linux Archives

Ubuntu Linux – Black screen and frozen system after upgrade and/or install

May 052019

After upgrading a computer from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, during boot the screen goes blank (turns black), all HD disk activity halts, and the system becomes frozen. This event can also occur on a fresh installation or when updates are installed.

This is due to a video mode issue that causes the system to halt or freeze. It’s much like the issue I described here on a Fedora Linux system.

Temporary Fix

To get the system to boot:

After turning on your PC, hold the right SHIFT key to get to the GRUB bootloader if your computer uses a BIOS. If your computer uses EFI or UEFI, continuously tap the “ESC” (escape) key after turning on your PC.
Once GRUB is open, press the “e” key to edit the first highlighted entry “Ubuntu”.
Move your cursor down to the line that starts with “linux”, and use the right arrow key to find the section with the words “ro quiet splash”.
Add “nomodeset” after these words.
```
nomodeset
```
Feel free to remove “quiet” and “splash” for more verbosity to troubleshoot the boot process.
Press “CTRL + X” or “F10” to boot.
The system should now boot.

Permanent Fix

To permanently resolve the issue:

Once the system has booted using the temporary fix, log in.
Open a terminal window (Applications -> Terminal, or press the “Start” button and type terminal).
Either “su” in to root, or use “sudo” to open your favorite text editor and edit the file “/etc/default/grub” (I use nano which can be install by running “apt install nano”):
```
nano /etc/default/grub
```
Locate the line with the variable “GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT”, and add “nomodeset” to the variables. Feel free to remove “splash” and “quiet” if you’d like text boot. Here’s an example of my line after editing (yours will look different):
```
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"
```
Save the file and exit the text editor (CTRL+X to quit, the press “y” and enter to save).
At the bash prompt, execute the following command to regenerate the grub.conf file on the /boot partition from your new default file:
```
update-grub
```
Restart your system, it should now boot!

Please Note: Always make sure you have a full system backup before modifying any system files!

Cannot install Ubuntu Linux due to lack of resources (memory)

Linux, Ubuntu, Uncategorized No Responses »

May 042019

You’re trying to install Ubuntu on your computer, but it freezes due to lack of resources, specifically memory. This can happen when you’re trying to re-purpose old laptops, netbooks, etc.

This recently happened to met as I tried to install Ubuntu on an old HP Netbook. Originally I used Fedora, but had to switch to Ubuntu due to library issues (I wanted to use the VMware Horizon Client on it).

Unfortunately, when I’d kick off the USB installer, the OS would completely freeze (mouse either unresponsive, or extremely glitchy).

The Fix – External SWAP File

In the ~5 minutes where the system is operable, I used the key sequence “CTRL + ALT + F2” to get to a text tty console session. From here I noticed the system eventually uses all the RAM and maxes out the memory. When this occurs, this is when the system becomes unresponsive.

Since this is a Live CD installer, there is no swap file for the system to use once the RAM has filled up.

To fix this and workaround the problem, I grabbed a second blank USB stick and used it as an external swap file. Using this allowed me to run the installer, complete the installer, and successfully install Ubuntu.

Please make sure you are choosing the right device names in the instructions below. Choosing the wrong device name can cause your to write to the wrong USB stick, or worse the hard drive of your system.

Instructions:

Attached USB Installer, boot system.
Once system has booted, press “CTRL + ALT + F2” to open a tty console session.
Login using user: “Ubuntu” with a blank password.
Type “sudo su” to get a root shell.
Type in “tail -f /var/log/kern.log” and connect your spare blank USB stick that you want to use for SWAP space. Note the device name, in my case it was “/dev/sdd”.
Press “CTRL + C” to stop tailing the log file, then run “fdisk /dev/sdd” and replace “/dev/sdd” with whatever your device was. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ARE CHOOSING THE RIGHT USB DEVICE NAME.
Use “n” to create a new partition, follow the prompts, when it asks for size I randomly chose “+2G” for a 2GB swap file. Use “w” to write the partition table and then quit the fdisk application.
Run “mkswap /dev/sdd1” and replace “sdd1” with the device and partition number of your USB Swap stick. This will format the partition and mark it as a SWAP filesystem.
Run “swapon /dev/sdd1” and replace “sdd1” with your swap partition you created. This will activate the external swap file on the USB stick.
Press “CTRL + ALT + F1” to return to the Ubuntu installation guide. Continue the install as normal.

This should also work for other Linux distributions, as I have also used this in the past with Fedora (on a Single Board Computer with almost no RAM).

During the install process where the Ubuntu installer formats your hard drive, the install will actually mount the hard drive swap file as well (it’ll use both). Once the installer is complete, shut down the system and remove the USB SWAP stick.

Repurpose your old Netbook or Laptop in to the perfect VMware Horizon View VDI Client

Fedora, Linux, Omnissa Horizon, VMware No Responses »

Aug 262018

One of the coolest things I love about running VMware Horizon View and VDI is that you can repurpose old computers, laptops, or even netbooks in to perfect VDI clients running Linux! This is extremely easy to do and gives life to old hardware you may have lying around (and we all know there’s nothing wrong with that).

I generally use Fedora and the VMware Horizon View Linux client to accomplish this. See below to see how I do it!

Quick Guide

Download the Fedora Workstation install or netboot ISO from here.
Burn it to a DVD/CD if you have DVD/CD drive, or you can write it to a USB stick using this method here.
Install Fedora on to your laptop/notebook/netbook using the workstation install.
Update your Fedora Linux install using the following command
```
dnf -y upgrade
```

Install the prerequisites for the VMware Horizon View Linux client using these commands

dnf -y install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
dnf -y install gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-ffmpeg xine-lib-extras-freeworld xine-lib-extras-freeworld libssl* libcrypto* openssl-devel libpng12 systemd-devel libffi-devel

To fix an issue with package versions and dependancies, run the following commands

ln -s /usr/lib64/libudev.so.1 /usr/lib64/libudev.so.0
ln -s /usr/lib64/libffi.so.6 /usr/lib64/libffi.so.5

Download the VMware Horizon View Linux client from here
Make the VMware bundle executable and then run the installer using these commands (your file name may be different depending on build version number)
```
chmod 777 VMware-Horizon-Client-4.8.0-8518891.x64.bundle
sudo ./VMware-Horizon-Client-4.8.0-8518891.x64.bundle
```
Complete the installation wizard
You’re done!

To run the client, you can find it in the GUI applications list as “VMware Horizon Client”, or you can launch it by running “vmware-view”.

VMware Horizon View on Linux in action

Here is a VMware Horizon View Linux client running on HP Mini 220 Netbook

Additional Notes:

-If you’re comfortable, instead of the workstation install, you can install the Fedora LXQt Desktop spin, which is a lightweight desktop environment perfect for low performance hardware or netbooks. More information and the download link for Fedora LXQt Desktop Spin can be found here: https://spins.fedoraproject.org/en/lxqt/

-If you installed Fedora Workstation and would like to install the LXQt window manager afterwards, you can do so by running the following command (after installing, at login prompt, click on the gear to change window managers):

dnf install @lxqt-desktop-environment

-Some of the prerequisites above in the guide may not be required, however I have installed them anyways for compatibility.

Fedora Core – Black screen with cursor after install or upgrade

Fedora 26 Responses »

Aug 252018

After doing a fresh install or upgrade of Fedora Core Linux (FC28 in my case, but this applies to any version), you may notice that when the system boots it gets stuck on a black screen with a white cursor. The cursor will not move and there will be no drive activity.

This issue occurs with GNOME on my old HP Mini 210 Netbook every time I do a fresh install of Fedora on it (or upgrade it).

Follow the process below to temporarily boot and then permanently fix it.

Temporary fix

To get the system to boot:

Power on the computer, and carefully wait for the GRUB bootloader to appear (the boot selection screen).
When the GRUB bootloader appears, press the “e” key to edit the highlighted (default) boot entry.
Scroll down until you get to the line starting with “linux16”, then use your right arrow key and scroll right until you get to the end of the kernel options (while scrolling right, you may scroll multiple lines down which is fine and expected). The line should finally end with “rhgb” and “quiet”.
Remove “rhgb” and “quiet”, and then add “nomodeset=0”
Press “CTRL+x” to boot the system.
The system should now boot.

FYI: “rhgb” is the kernel switch/option for redhat graphical boot, and “quiet” makes the system messages more quiet (who would have guessed).

Permanent Fix

To permanently resolve the issue:

Once the system has booted, log in.
Open a terminal window (Applications -> Terminal, or press the “Start” button and type terminal).
Use your favorite text editor and edit the file “/etc/default/grub” (I use nano which can be install by running “dnf install nano”):
```
nano /etc/default/grub
```
Locate the line with the variable “GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX”, and add “nomodeset=0” to the variables. Feel free to remove “rhgb” and “quiet” if you’d like text boot. Here’s an example of my line after editing (yours will look different):
```
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="resume=/dev/mapper/fedora_da--netbook01-swap rd.lvm.lv=fedora_da-netbook01/root rd.lvm.lv=fedora_da-netbook01/swap nomodeset=0"
```
Save the file and exit the text editor (CTRL+x to quit, the press “y” and enter to save)
At the bash prompt, execute the following command to regenerate the grub.conf file on the /boot partition from your new default file:
```
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
```
Restart your system, it should now boot!

Please Note: Always make sure you have a full system backup before modifying any system files!

Create Fedora or CentOS USB boot media with an ISO image file and dd on Linux

CentOS, Fedora, Linux 2 Responses »

Aug 252018

A fun fact that a lot of users still aren’t aware of, is that you can create Fedora and CentOS bootable media (a bootable USB stick) using the DVD/CD ISO image, and using the linux dd command.

So if you have an existing and running Linux install, you can use this method to quickly write an ISO file to a USB stick!

Here’s How!

Get your USB stick handy, make sure it’s big enough to store the ISO file you want to download.
Download your preferred ISO DVD or CD Image for Installation from CentOS or Fedora.
Connect your USB stick, open a terminal session and run the following command to identify the device name of the USB stick (mine was sdb for /dev/sdb):
```
[root@StephenW-X1 ~]# dmesg | grep removable
[  171.890670] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
```

Issue the following command to write the ISO image to the USB stick. Change the input filename, and output device name to reflect your own.

[root@StephenW-X1 Downloads]# dd if=Fedora-Workstation-netinst-x86_64-28-1.1.iso of=/dev/sdb
1193984+0 records in
1193984+0 records out
611319808 bytes (611 MB, 583 MiB) copied, 13.6777 s, 44.7 MB/s

Your done!

Please Note:

Choosing the wrong /dev/sd[x] device can case you to write the ISO file to your hard drive, or another hard drive in your system. Make sure you select the right device name. If you’re unsure, don’t run the command.
You can also use the “Fedora Media Writer for Windows” available here: https://getfedora.org/fmw/FedoraMediaWriter-win32-4.1.1.exe to write an ISO image to USB if you’re running Windows.

Older Entries Newer Entries