Hi Ludovic and Florian

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> Hi Niels,
>
> Niels Felsted <niels@pdlkrft.eu> skribis:
>
>> I have have installed guix on a old laptop from. I dd'ed the iso file:
>>
>> guix-system-install-1.1.0rc2.i686-linux.iso
>>
>> on a usb stick, and booted from it.
>>
>> It boots directly into a ncurses gui, but the screen is distorted and
>> it is not possible to read anything. I have attached an image showing
>> the issue.
>
> Ouch, indeed.
>
>> I finished the install using the terminal on tty3.
>
> And tty3 displays fine, right?

Yes tty3 displays fine

>
>> I have tested the current 1.0.1 iso also, and the ncurses gui looks
>> fine there (though the actual install fails compiling some amdgpu
>> package).
>
> OK.
>
>> The laptop is a Acer aspire 3680, with Intel Celeron cpu, 1.5gb ram
>> and the following graphics card:
>>
>> ~$ lspci | grep -e "VGA"
>> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
>
> I see.  Could you boot the 1.1.0rc2 again and send us the
> /var/log/messages file?  (You can either do “herd start ssh-daemon” in
> the image or run scp right from there, once networking is up, which
> means you have to go to the networking dialog of the installer.)

I have attached /var/log/messages

> Florian, could it be uvesafb messing with the graphics card?

And testing Florians suggestions:

setting 'nomodeset' kernel parameter -> screen displays fine

setting 'modprobe.blacklist=i915' kernel parameter -> screen displays fine

As mentioned before, I did manage to install guix via tty3 (without
setting any kernel parameters), and it boots up fine with
gdm3/xfce4. So it is only the initial boot from the install iso that's
distorted.

br
Niels Felsted