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Booting Arch Linux
Looking at this issue in another context, I found out how to fix an issue I had in Arch Linux so far.
What is happening
When kexec is starting the Arch Linux kernel and initramfs, the screen is not showing anything. I found out that the system is booting normally, if I just blindly type in my luks passphrase.
How it should look
You should be able to see early messages of the initramfs, instead you only the kernel messages after assuming what is happening.
How to fix
Adding i915 module to the initramfs fixes this issue.
@techge another user has issue under #1117. Do you have any insight why i915 is not provided per ArchLinux under initrd? Bug or feature? Should they fix it?
https://github.com/osresearch/heads/pull/1120 would like your testing @techge!!!!
To my eyes, it seems that the initramfs should include i915 driver. No contact whatsoever with Archlinux, but any strings we could pull would be awesome here, since it seems some users are using Archlinux over Heads.
Here is the kexec command line screen capture from @lynxred: https://github.com/osresearch/heads/issues/1117#issuecomment-1048132407
As noted under #1117, I am no Archlinux user, but PR #1120 should permit other users to test this further if needed. (I confirm the latest ISO boots.... So...... We would expect the ISO initrd actually provides i915, so the installer should also provide it.... But that is just suppositions).
As mentioned in my first post above i915 is included in initrd once i915 is included in die MODULES
part of the /etc/mkinicpio.conf. Is it a bug? I don't think so. But then I guess it depends on how you expect a distro to behave...
https://github.com/osresearch/heads/pull/1120 would like your testing @techge!!!!
Not sure if I get to it any time soon. Actually, I changed my setup and only use my x230 for some tests and specialities and not on a everyday basis any more. Actually I re-flashed with coreboot this weekend and I'd need to flash heads again... Anyway, I switch over to the PR...
@techge so basically, i understand from your experience that adding i915 in initrd, from the booted installer iso, might work around the issue.
@techge so basically, i understand from your experience that adding i915 in initrd, from the booted installer iso, might work around the issue.
That is correct. The way I see it, this has nothing to do with heads. As I said elsewhere, I used coreboot on my x230 these days and had the same issue. I needed to find out about this again :smile:
@lynxred ? #1117 was a duplicate of #702. Have you built i915 driver to be put in initrd from installer?
It would be interesting to know which modules are packed by default under initrd by archlinux installation.
As per recent work, we expect efifb to be able to drive simpledrm, simplefb and efifb ~if archilinux comes with it by default~: no, end users have to pack required iGPU/dDGPU drivers as per previous links