09-27-2021, 08:11 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-28-2021, 04:25 PM by Pete Tandy.)
I've got Debian 11 (Bullseye) up and booting successfully to the Xfce4 desktop. Thing is, switching to tty (text) consoles using the Ctrl+Alt+fx doesn't appear to do anything at all except hide the mouse cursor on the desktop. I can get it back by pressing Ctrl+Alt+f7.
Also, the typical Linux boot messages stay hidden behind a blank screen, which only comes alive when the graphical window manager is loaded. I haven't encountered this issue with other distros I've tested, such as Armbian (Xfce4) or Manjaro (KDE 5).
Is there a way to get the text consoles active in Debian without resorting to a serial console?
Update: No success, even after having changed two pertinent lines in my /etc/grub.d/10_linux to read:
linux ${rel_dirname}/${basename} root=${linux_root_device_thisversion} ro ${args} vga=normal nofb nomodeset video=vesafb:off
Still no boot messages, and no way to switch from the default graphical to another tty.
Update 2: Tried 'nomodeset' without any other parameters; no good results.
Update 3: Replaced lightdm with gdm3. No difference whatsover.
Update 4: Cleared the boot sector of the microSD card and reinstalled Debian 11 without Desktop or graphical environment. The screen is still blank, but I can seem to switch between tty 's and login as root to initiate a clean shutdown. No text on screen (in fact, nothing on screen) but some kind of signal is definitely being output to monitor. I then connected the RockPro64 to an HDMI TV set and got exactly the same (non-) results. I should note that Armbian Focal has been tested on my copy and works fine rendering both text and graphics, so it's probably not an issue with the hardware.
Am I to assume that switching between tty consoles isn't doable, at least not without a serial console?
Also, the typical Linux boot messages stay hidden behind a blank screen, which only comes alive when the graphical window manager is loaded. I haven't encountered this issue with other distros I've tested, such as Armbian (Xfce4) or Manjaro (KDE 5).
Is there a way to get the text consoles active in Debian without resorting to a serial console?
Update: No success, even after having changed two pertinent lines in my /etc/grub.d/10_linux to read:
linux ${rel_dirname}/${basename} root=${linux_root_device_thisversion} ro ${args} vga=normal nofb nomodeset video=vesafb:off
Still no boot messages, and no way to switch from the default graphical to another tty.
Update 2: Tried 'nomodeset' without any other parameters; no good results.
Update 3: Replaced lightdm with gdm3. No difference whatsover.
Update 4: Cleared the boot sector of the microSD card and reinstalled Debian 11 without Desktop or graphical environment. The screen is still blank, but I can seem to switch between tty 's and login as root to initiate a clean shutdown. No text on screen (in fact, nothing on screen) but some kind of signal is definitely being output to monitor. I then connected the RockPro64 to an HDMI TV set and got exactly the same (non-) results. I should note that Armbian Focal has been tested on my copy and works fine rendering both text and graphics, so it's probably not an issue with the hardware.
Am I to assume that switching between tty consoles isn't doable, at least not without a serial console?