Dell Latitiude E6410

Questions about the installation of FreeBSD
amtrakuk
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:12 am

Dell Latitiude E6410

Post by amtrakuk »

I'm having problems booting on a Dell lat E6410. it just boots to a prompt at the point its meant to load the GUI. I'm assuming it is something to do with the NVIDIA GPU?
ASX
Posts: 988
Joined: Wed May 06, 2015 12:46 pm

Re: Dell Latitiude E6410

Post by ASX »

I know it can work, because I have used a DELL e6410 (w/ nvidia NVS 3100m) for a few months, but I don't have that notebook anymore.
Fact is I didn't installed the system, I moved a previously installed hard disk on the e6410, and it was working using nvidia-driver-340.xx.

One thing I remember (unrelated to your issue) is that In BIOS there is a setting for the disk controller: AHCI / RAID / ... and the default is RAID: this setting cause the corruption of the secondary GPT (that one at the end of the disk), so be sure to not use RAID setting.

About your issue, I would try to reboot in live mode and than look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log, there you should find some hint at 'why' X is failing to start; I can't recall exactly, but there may be some issue related to recognize the LCD screen, aka LVDS.
If that is the case, you could try to work around the issue using an external monitor for the time of the installation, until you have the chance to install the nvidia proprietary drivers.
amtrakuk
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:12 am

Re: Dell Latitiude E6410

Post by amtrakuk »

Ahh changing the BIOS HDD addressing sounds a plan, I'll check that.

It boots up off the USB stick OK to the point the "desktop" is initialising. I tried startx at the prompt but it says the X failed to initialise and returns back to a prompt (IIRC)
amtrakuk
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:12 am

Re: Dell Latitiude E6410

Post by amtrakuk »

still having problems, reset the BIOS and set the hard disk to AHCI. Attached is a photo. Failed boot of USB, logged in as "GhostBSD" and running startX
Attachments
20171002_183953.jpg
ASX
Posts: 988
Joined: Wed May 06, 2015 12:46 pm

Re: Dell Latitiude E6410

Post by ASX »

amtrakuk wrote:still having problems, reset the BIOS and set the hard disk to AHCI. Attached is a photo. Failed boot of USB, logged in as "GhostBSD" and running startX
Yep, I see the error, "no screen found".
X server is unable to detect the screen ... can you try to boot using an external monitor ?

Among many things I have also installed windows, and there , once installed the nvidia driver as provided from Dell, I found a little utility to enable some sort of "Nvidia ..." can recall the name, iit was something related to high performance/3D acceleration or something like that.
To some extent the machine behavior changed after I enabled that feature. (related to dual monitor setup).

Other than that I surely updated the BIOS/UEFI to the latest available version.

I see you are booting GhostBSD 10.3, you could also try to boot one of the 11.1-beta/rc, I certainly was using 11.x.
amtrakuk
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:12 am

Re: Dell Latitiude E6410

Post by amtrakuk »

I'll give 11.1 a go tonight but I'm pretty sure I've tried that... Interestingly enough TrueOS boots from USB OK and I did have a tinker with FreeBSD + Gnome 3 which worked OK however trying to play videos was not a nice experience so I gave up trying to install the correct graphics drivers after a plethora of errors.
amtrakuk
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:12 am

Re: Dell Latitiude E6410

Post by amtrakuk »

Evening all!

Sadly 11.0 is doing the same thing.. Find attached. Any ideas?
Attachments
20171003_202906_resized.jpg
ASX
Posts: 988
Joined: Wed May 06, 2015 12:46 pm

Re: Dell Latitiude E6410

Post by ASX »

Hi amtrakuk,

today I came across a very similar problem on a different DELL laptop, it was unable to start X, much like yours, same error.
I tried several things, like resetting the BIOS to default, to no avail. At some point I decided to boot a different OS (Openindiana Hipster) just to be sure the problem didn't lie in the OS itself.

Openindiana booted fine, up to a graphical desktop, then I retried GhostBSD and it worked.

Now in my Xorg.0.log I can see both screens, the external one (CRT--0) and the internal LCD (LGD / DFP-0 / LVDS), but I don't have a rational explanation. All I know for sure is that before booting openindiana, the LVDS was not visible in Xorg.0.log, in some way seems that it was "reset" when I booted the other OS.
[ 1117.254] (--) NVIDIA(0): Valid display device(s) on GeForce 9300M GS at PCI:1:0:0
[ 1117.254] (--) NVIDIA(0): Samsung SMS22A450 (CRT-0) (connected)
[ 1117.254] (--) NVIDIA(0): LGD (DFP-0) (boot, connected)
[ 1117.254] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Samsung SMS22A450 (CRT-0): 400.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[ 1117.255] (--) NVIDIA(0): LGD (DFP-0): Internal LVDS
[ 1117.255] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): LGD (DFP-0): 330.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[ 1117.255] (**) NVIDIA(0): Using HorizSync/VertRefresh ranges from the EDID for display
[ 1117.255] (**) NVIDIA(0): device Samsung SMS22A450 (CRT-0) (Using EDID frequencies
[ 1117.255] (**) NVIDIA(0): has been enabled on all display devices.)
[ 1117.261] (**) NVIDIA(0): Using HorizSync/VertRefresh ranges from the EDID for display
[ 1117.262] (**) NVIDIA(0): device LGD (DFP-0) (Using EDID frequencies has been
[ 1117.262] (**) NVIDIA(0): enabled on all display devices.)
I also tried to make the LVDS disappear again, without success.

If you want to try, the openindiana ISO and USB images can be found here, it is a live media, so no need to install, booting is sufficient.
http://dlc.openindiana.org/ (LiveCD ISO or LIVE CD USB)
amtrakuk
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:12 am

Re: Dell Latitiude E6410

Post by amtrakuk »

Right, I've tried the Hipster version of OI BSD - that gets as far as text relating to OPENSolaris. Sadly that doesn't boot either to the UI. The only one that does on my 6410 is TrueOS but I'm not keen on the UI - the icons are just black and white but in high resolution, OI didn't change anything regarding Ghost though :x

i'm going to plump and assume there is hardware inconsistencies
ASX
Posts: 988
Joined: Wed May 06, 2015 12:46 pm

Re: Dell Latitiude E6410

Post by ASX »

amtrakuk wrote:Right, I've tried the Hipster version of OI BSD - that gets as far as text relating to OPENSolaris. Sadly that doesn't boot either to the UI. The only one that does on my 6410 is TrueOS but I'm not keen on the UI - the icons are just black and white but in high resolution, OI didn't change anything regarding Ghost though :x

i'm going to plump and assume there is hardware inconsistencies
Hmm .... TrueOS is really based on FreeBSD-12-current, that means it has some newer features.
If you don't like Lumina Desktop, you can still install xfce or mate or something else, and later remove Lumina.
Other than that, you can use the fact that TrueOS works, to find out difference about how the hardware is recognized, i.e. looking at /var/log/Xorg.0.log, or may be, driver version, up to copying the xorg.conf file, if present.

Other than that, I'm out if ideas ...
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