startx reboots system

[sacerdos_daemonis]

I took another stab at NetBSD, but still no luck. I can install a perfectly working system, but only in a TTY. startx loads a black screen with a grey rectangle in the top left corner, then the system reboots.

I tried an experiment in case Xorg in the installer is flaky. The plan was to installed without X then manually install Xorg, but Xorg does not appear to be in the repository of binary packages, only in ports. I could enable src during installation, but I am not going to wait a few hours for the download unless I know the result will be a functioning system.

Booting normally or ACPI disabled makes no difference.

Since some people can install fully functioning systems, there must be something I am missing. Any ideas for the next time I try would be helpful.

NetBSD 8.1
Lenovo laptop

[jggimi]

Logs such as /var/log/Xorg.0.log or /var/log/messages may have usable information, as might a dmesg(8) if RAM is not wiped on boot.

Disclaimer: I've never used NetBSD.

[sacerdos_daemonis]

Next time I shall look for those files (or NetBSD equivalents). I watch the screen during boot and the readout looks very similar to to what I see on OpenBSD. There might be something else in dmesg that could be helpful, but it will have to wait until the next time I try to install it. At the moment I am giving FreeBSD a go, but want to collect any information I can for the near future.

[Sehnsucht94]

Originally Posted by sacerdos_daemonis

Next time I shall look for those files (or NetBSD equivalents). I watch the screen during boot and the readout looks very similar to to what I see on OpenBSD. There might be something else in dmesg that could be helpful, but it will have to wait until the next time I try to install it. At the moment I am giving FreeBSD a go, but want to collect any information I can for the near future.

In order to determine where the problem lays, checking out /var/log/Xorg.*.log as it's been suggested above by ibara, is a good starting point. There's good chance the GPU it's actually the one causing trouble.
In order to see what sort of hardware (and graphics) is your box equipped with, type:

# pcictl pci0 list

Also, don't forget to check out the dmesg, thus to see which drm driver (if any) was attached at boot to your GPU.

8.1 provides i915 graphics support up to Broadwell, but I found it quite buggy when I tried it last on my i7 5600k; it seems the issue got fixed the moment drm/kms graphics were updated on HEAD least year, so as to be in par with Linux 4.11: my suggestion, if you have Intel 5th+ gen graphics, is to either upgrade to 9.0_BETA or 9.9*-current. So far, my laptop works shamelessly with 9.0_BETA (I transitioned to it from 8.9*-current), it's very stable and brings a not negligible performance boost compared to 8.0-8.1.

You can upgrade to 9.0_BETA or to -current branch using sysupgrade, or for 9.0_BETA, by using the boot.iso or the miniroot image provided to perform a fresh installation; you'll find everything needed, including the sets to point sysupgrade at, here: http://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-d.../latest/amd64/

[sacerdos_daemonis]

Originally Posted by Sensucht94

There's good chance the GPU it's actually the one causing trouble.

That is a possibility. When NetBSD booted it displayed the same or similar message I get when using OpenBSD.

drm:pid0:si_init *ERROR* Expecting atombios for cayman GPU
drm:pid0:radeondrm_attachhook *ERROR* Fatal error during GPU init

From what I can make out I have two video cards and the BSDs do not like one of them. However, Open and Free BSDs still function.

if you have Intel 5th+ gen graphics

To be honest I have no idea.

ATI Radeon HD 8670M

either upgrade to 9.0_BETA or 9.9*-current

I do not like the idea of using a testing version of a system I am not familiar with. I would be comfortable trying such a thing with OpenBSD, but not Net. The result would be almost guaranteed to be bad.

I am surprised that hardware might be an issue. Since one of NetBSD's goals is to support many platforms, it should have a wider range of supported hardware. It is surprising that my hardware runs on Open and FreeBSD, but not Net.