And just for some explanation - usplash accesses your video card directly through calls to the video BIOS. On x86, it can run the code directly in vm86 mode. Since amd64 systems running in 64 bit mode can't use the vm86 instruction, the code is run through an emulator instead.
If you're getting a flashing caps lock light, that indicates that the kernel has crashed. This is obviously slightly confusing, since usplash on amd64 doesn't use the kernel for anything. It's quite possible that a bug in the x86 emulator used is causing it to write over kernel memory, but this would be quite odd behaviour. In any case, I'll see if I can determine a test case for this that will give us some more feedback. For further clarification - is there anybody with this bug who does not have an ATI graphics card? Given the lspci output, it's clearly not related to the motherboard chipset. Finally, if you could let me know precisely which manufacturer and model of graphics card you have, that would be helpful. This could be linked to a specific vendor BIOS. -- Feisty crashes after grub if usplash enabled (amd64) https://launchpad.net/bugs/86666 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
