[CentOS] upgrading 7.5 ==> 7.6

Sun Dec 23 01:28:03 UTC 2018
Fred Smith <fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us>

On Sat, Dec 22, 2018 at 10:47:54PM +0000, Pete Biggs wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Then I ran the upgrade, which went without any notable issues. Reboot
> > works fine. the X login screen appears, I enter my credentials and log
> > in. It goes through a lot of motions and eventually stops with the
> > snowy/gray background from the Plymouth boot screen, but with nothing
> > at all on it, and no mouse pointer. X is clearly running, but is not
> > displaying my Mate desktop.
> > 
> > I saved aside /var/log/messages and /var/log/Xorg.0.log, uploaded
> > subsets of them to pastebin. the /var/log/messages subset is https://pastebin.com/MJR2T3Xz, while the xorg.0.log is https://pastebin.com/wrucd77z.
> > 
> > Note the repeating (apparent) failures at the end of Xorg.0.log.
> 
> They are fine, just normal chatter you get in there.
> 
> However, the /var/log/messages does contain some issues with the video
> driver e.g.:
> 
> Dec 22 09:43:37 elitebox kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: ring 0 stalled for more than 10221msec
> Dec 22 09:43:37 elitebox kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: GPU lockup (current fence id 0x00000000000002f3 last fence id 0x0000000000000302 on ring 0)
> Dec 22 09:43:37 elitebox kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: ring 0 stalled for more than 10722msec
> Dec 22 09:43:37 elitebox kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: GPU lockup (current fence id 0x00000000000002f3 last fence id 0x0000000000000302 on ring 0)
> Dec 22 09:43:38 elitebox kernel: [drm:r600_ib_test [radeon]] *ERROR* radeon: fence wait failed (-35).
> Dec 22 09:43:38 elitebox kernel: [drm:radeon_ib_ring_tests [radeon]] *ERROR* radeon: failed testing IB on GFX ring (-35).
> 
> That's indicative of either a GPU (i.e. graphics card) problem or a
> driver issue.  You can search on the 2nd from last line and there are
> lots of hits on it but no real solution - I've seen "limit memory use
> to 3G", "change PCI slot", "OpenGL bug" to "buy different card".

a little hard to change the slot or buy a different card, when it is
a laptop. :(

> > 
> > I don't know what any of this has to do with Mate, but would appreciate
> > your assistance.
> 
> Almost certainly not.  It's a kernel problem.
> 
> > 
> > (I ran the update on a netbook and it went fine. both have Intel CPUs,
> > the netbook  has intel graphics, and the new-to-me-etc. laptop has a
> > Radeon graphics chipset. I dunno if it makes any difference, or how to
> > tell, or how to fix it, if it does.)
> > 
> > Suggestions appreciated, in advance!
> > 
> 
> You might like to try running a different distro on it to check -
> possibly run Fedora 29 Live from a USB drive. If that works OK using an
> updated Radeon kernel driver then you know the hardware is OK. 
> 
> P.

Or perhaps the kernel-ml from elrepo ??

-- 
---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -----------------------------
               But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: 
                         While we were still sinners, 
                              Christ died for us.
------------------------------- Romans 5:8 (niv) ------------------------------