I’ve had a really tough time trying to install Manjaro, now being completely clueless.
The hardware is as follows:
HP EliteDesk 705 G4 DM
processor: AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 2400G with Radeon Vega Graphics 3.60 GHz
1st SSD (built in): Samsung ?, 512GB, M.2, via PCI Express 3.0 (x4), thereon: Win 10 Pro 64bit - preinstalled,
16 GB DDR4 2666 MHz
two 4k monitors connected via display port
2nd SSD (expanded in an internal 2.5’’ bay): Samsung EVO 860 V-NAND, 1 TB, 2.5", via SATA; thereon I want to install Linux
There are two problems I’m constantly failling to solve
A. Cannot reboot the installed system after first shutdown
from the live system I run the Calamares installer. It finishes without any problems
I end the installation process by restarting into the fresh system
The new system boots and runs fine. However, whenever I end this very first session by shutting it down regularly - never had to force anything because everything runs smooth - this is its death sentence: After the system shut down I cannot start it any more.
All I get from there on is the Grub menu, offering me to chose between Win 10 (which still starts fine and works perfectly) and Manjaro.
By selecting Manjaro, the screen turns black, a cursor blinks a couple of times and nothing happens any more. It seems to me that the boot process itself is not starting. (More details below)
B. The installation media hardly ever boots into a live system
I hardly can generate a running live system. Regardless of the Manjaro edition (xfce, KDE, i3) in particular, or the Linux distribution (Endeavouros, Artix, elementaryOS) in general, it’s always the same pattern: flashing runs without error, but the live media in the end hardly ever works. (More details below)
More details
Since Win 10 runs without any problems, I assume that the hardware is not broken.
@ problem A
I install Linux on the 1 TB SSD Samsung EVO 860
partitioning is done manually in Calamares as follows:
partition table is GPT.
1000 MB EFI (flaged as efi, the esp option is unavailable), fat32
250 GB root (flaged as root), ext4
ca. 680 GB home, ext4
ca. 24 GB Swap (flaged as swap), linuxswap
sometimes, but not always, the wifi is recognized and running, so I do a system update in the very first session. But it is not always the case. So in the latter cases it’s completely incomprehensible, because the system is not altered at all.
for flashing I use Rufus, Etcher or Win32DiskImager
in Rufus:
if possible I choose GPT and UEFI, however for Manjaro isos these options are always deactivated (find screenshots here )
some isos (e.g. elementary) allow to select between iso mode and dd mode. No matter which one I chose the result is the same. Again, for Manjaro isos these options don’t show up.
all isos were downloaded from the official web sites and checksums were calculated, not showing any corruptions
BIOS / UEFI settings are as follows:
Secure Boot : Disabled
Legacy Support : Enabled
Fast Boot : Disabled
selecting a different USB port as mentioned in this post has unfortunately no effect.
Result: booting into the live media shows three scenarios
boot process get stuck, around Started Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status sometimes sooner
the Grub menu shows up, I select keyboard layout, hit Enter and then nothing happens. As well as in problem A, the cursor blinks a couple of times, and then everything just stops, nothing is happening any more.
very rarely a live system boots. After shutting down this session, as well as in problem A, the media remains dead and only scenario 2. happens on further attempts to start. To boot I have to create a fresh flash and hope that it will boot eventually.
That’s it so far. I am sorry for this long post, but I hope I could describe my problems at least precise enough that you could get an impression.
Please ask if you need further information.
I have no idea what’s going so terribly wrong.
Manjaro had proven during the last year on a Lenovo laptop (V110) to be an absolutely troublefree and reliable system I’ve used daily and don’t want to miss any more.
Thanks again.
I tried all what you suggested. Here my results.
@ A. Regarding the installed Manjaro system:
I could install a fresh Manjaro version; this time wifi was available during installation. After the installation the initial restart was not successful, so I changed the /etc/default/grub as mentioned, trying both iommu=pt and iommu=soft. The latter one doesn’t work at all. With pt Grub starts. For Manjaro the “normal” boot mode doesn’t work: no boot process starts.
By selecting the “fallback initramfs” the boot sequence starts always, but still gets stuck. So I still can’t boot into the system, however it now stops at many different points. I restarted several times and collected a few:
[ OK ] Started Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status...
[ OK ] Finished TLP system startup/shutdown...
[ OK ] Started Light Display Manager.
[ 5.830449] kfd kfd: error getting iommu info. is the iommu enable?
[ 5.830506] kfd kfd: Error initializing iommun2
[ 5.830604] kfd kfd: device 1002:15dd NOT added due to errors
[ OK ] Reached target Graphical Interface.
[ ***] A start job is running for Daily man-db regeneration (1m 552 / no limit)
[ OK ] Started User Login Management.
Hopefully this provides some deeper insights.
@ B. The live media
First of all the good. Ventoy - I had never heard of it - is really easy to use and saves so much time spent for the formatting and flashing process before.
It assures further that the live media is starting to boot, however the boot process still fails in almost all cases. Manjaro gets stuck constantly at Started Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status no matter what edition or configuration I chose.
For curiosity I tested Artix. When using Runit it first stoped at :: Waiting for udev uevents to be processed [busy]
In the second boot attempt it started the live system successfully and wifi was also available.
With OpenRC it hangs at mtab |* Updating /etc/mtab ...
and at bootmisc |* Creating user login records ...
Both print in the very first line: [ 1.428217] pci 0000:00:00.2 : AMD-Vi: Unable to read/write to IOMMU perf counter EndeavourOS and elementaryOS do not work any more.
first a little addition: I tested the two settings for iommu more extensively and cannot see a difference any more as reported in my last post.
So, set to soft shows the same behavior as pt does. pt showed right now a distorted screen / screen tearing and then restarted itself instead of just getting stuck.
Good news: regarding hw-probe and journal-ctl I could produce some output.
Bad news: during the last 15 to 20 attempts non of the Manjaro systems had started; neither the installed one, nor any of the live systems. So I couldn’t install hw-probe. Therefore all results below are created under ArcoLinuxB running as live system (proposed as Live CD2 on the linux-hardware homepage ).
So are these results meaningful at all? I will redo them with my Manjaro system as soon as it boots up again, or I could reinstall it with Manjaro Architect. I will then try include other Kernels too - thanks for the suggestion.
during the weekend I installed the two newer Kernels (5.11.14-1 and 5.12.rc7) and tried to boot with them.
Unfortunately switching kernels doesn’t change anything. No matter if in normal or in fallback mode. Problems remain the same.
Furthermore, I finally found where the
[drm] BIOS signature incorrect 0 0
message was reported and tried to understand what it means.
But it goes far beyond my technical knowledge. Here’s what I get 'til now: drm is the abbreviation for digital right management? So whenever booting Linux the bios is regarded as being not correct, and the bios is a more fundamental part of the PC, so it causes errors and malfunction because some other functionalites are denied.
on report hwdb
iommu is not recognized
I haven’t found that entry yet, but again I don’t understand the details but I understand that iommu is a crucial part in managing the memory in the PC.
Anyway, I googled both entries as well, but couldn’t find any solution I was able to understand or to perform on myself.
What would you recommend to do next?
Is there a solution to make Linux work?
pci 0000:00:00.2: AMD-Vi: Unable to read/write to IOMMU perf counter.
[drm] BIOS signature incorrect 0 0
amdgpu 0000:30:00.0: amdgpu: RAS: optional ras ta ucode is not available
amdgpu 0000:30:00.0: amdgpu: RAP: optional rap ta ucode is not available
amdgpu 0000:30:00.0: [drm] fb0: amdgpudrmfb frame buffer device
@Manjaro-Team , can you check in microcode Amd & firmware linux 5.12 if there is info about any Ryzen Pro ?
I changed /etc/default/grub by adding amd_iommu and setting iommu=pt.
This seems to get rid of the iommo thing - but I’m not sure yet.
The main problem remains.
So I guess the main problem is caused by the drm thing, correct?
Meanwhile I found that “drm” is the abbreviation for “direct rendering model” too. What does “drm” stands for in the [drm] BIOS signature incorrect 0 0 context?
More important:
What can I do to correct the BIOS signature? Is this possible at all?
I updated the BIOS to the most recent version and disable everything that looked to me somehow security related. However a “digital right management” option is not provided.
But again nothing has even the slightest effect. The system remains getting stuck in the boot process.
Everytime you use team handle you ping 16 people, only one person deals with kernel things, did you think about using gitlab to open a issue, also IOMMU does not come active by default.
The issue is not always revealed in boot output, post your xorg.log file.
Also this is not arcolinux forum, that is a different system with different configurations and most likely kernel patches and as such you should go there for questions.
Getting the xorg file will be the next challenge. Meanwhile the Grub menu has disappeared completely as well .
Btw: not even the Arch installer launches…
As soon as I can read it out I’ll post xorg immediately. Maybe Manjaro gives me a chance…
Also this is not arcolinux forum, that is a different system with different configurations and most likely kernel patches and as such you should go there for questions.
@codesardine
I’m definetely a noob when it comes to all the technical stuff, but I can distinguish between different Linux distributions and their forums respectively . But my problem is affecting Manjaro: it hardly ever starts and gets stuck already during the boot process. No matter if an installed system or a live system is booted and no matter what edition is chosen. So unfortunately chances to gather information are very limited. I chose Arcolinux because
a. it was recommended by hw-probe (as “Live CD2”)
b. it worked (that time)
c. I hoped it might provide more valuable insights in a Manjaro related problem since both share the Arch base. Ubuntu and derivates boot insignificantly more frequently, but the differences here should be even bigger.
However if the system booted up it seems to run fine. Only wifi is not always recognized. But sound, video, graphics etc. everythings runs smooth without any issues. So I’m wondering because it shows that the hardware can work absolutely fine.
If the xorg file reveals no new aspects, I think you’re right, and stopping here is the best.
Thank you very much for your hints and ideas!
I’m still a bit irritated because the hardware is not bleeding etch any more (it’s around three years old now), so I had not expected to face issues that severe - on many Linux distros.
Manjaro also does not have arch linux installer, what are we debugging here, manjaro, arcolinux or archlinux?
I have not seen one manjaro issue on this post yet, you need to be specific about what the issue is.
The last linux distro you installed will override the grub menu from the last, about ryzen the only thing i can tell you is only kernel510 and above might work, iommu is also not active by default on manjaro as I mention above.
iommu is something that is hard to configure and it could cause issues if not done correctly, my first bet is start by disabling that on the kernel and after you solve this issue open another post on how to configure iommu for PCI passthrough.
without correct information is impossible to make sense and try to debug this issue.
files you may want to check:
/home/username/.xsession.errors
/home/username/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.1.log