[PLUG] Distribution Upgrade: Frame Buffer Glitch

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 3 Apr 2013 09:56:30 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 3 Apr 2013, Daniel Hedlund wrote:
> 
> > I recently had to figure out how to disable the framebuffer
> > completely under Arch when trying to do a remote install inside a
> > KVM guest over SSH. Yay for bookmarks. See if any of the
> > suggestions in the following post help (including those mentioned
> > in the original question):
> > http://serverfault.com/questions/361089/qemu-kvm-linux-virtualization-on-the-command-line
> 
>    Thanks, Daniel. I wonder how arch-specific that thread is.
> 
>    I've asked for help in the Slackware forum on linuxquestions.org
> and Pat Volkerding provided one suggestion that did not work; I'm
> waiting for more feedback to my latest update there.
> 
>    I've not had this issue on this laptop before so why it should
> suddenly appear after the previous half-dozen or so distribution
> upgrades escapes my knowledge base.
> 
> Rich

Rich,

This appears to be a kernel bug.  The line about "fb: conflicting fb
hw usage..." is a red herring.  It's simply the last line that gets
recorded before the kernel goes bye-bye.  It doesn't matter what
graphics chipset one uses, nor whether one boots with Grub, Grub2, or
Lilo.  The guilty kernels seem to be 3.5 and up.  From some of the
comments on Red Hat's Bugzilla, it appears that the bug was introduced
in an early, non-release version of 3.5.0.

Can you downgrade your kernel?  That seems the most likely fix.  3.4.8
should work (knock plastic!).

Hope this helps,

--Dale

--
Never try to teach a pig to sing.  It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
		-- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"