ernst doubt wrote: > After installing buster, this brand new laptop of mine seems to hang on > X (GDM) starting -- after briefly showing a flashing underscore char in > the top left corner of the screen, it drops back to command-line output > (but doesn't allow me to login). > > i'm booted into recovery mode right now and i've managed to get > networking up and running (and installed emacs-nox and gpm, yay!) and > i'm looking through /var/log/daemon.log from my failed boot last night. > > My assumption is that there's probably some non-free firmware package i > need to install (and maybe configure?) > > 20 years ago or so i remember fighting with modelines entries in order > to get X working, but i imagine things have changed. > > This machine purportedly has: > AMD Ryzen™ 5 2500U Mobile Processor with Radeon™ Vega 8 Graphics
This needs the amdgpu server: xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu and firmware-amd-graphics and a reboot. The primary log file for this should be /var/log/Xorg.0.log -- look for complaints there. It should explicitly recognize your video chipset as an AMD Vega system and then produce lots of output with the amdgpu prefix. If it doesn't, Xorg isn't firing up the right driver and you may need to specify it. -dsr-
