panic/lock/restart on dapper-amd64 if there's intel integrated video AND a nvidia card at the same time

Some people commented about this on forum, but I couldn't find anything here.

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=192677

Update - this bug also happens for today's edgy.

I suspect there's also a BIOS option to disable the built-in video, or prefer the AGP slot.

Changing udev rules for nvidia or intel-agp would be the ideal solution.

As a simple fix, I did a script which checks if both hardware are present and then I mount / as rw, blacklisting intel-agp and then I mount / as read-only again (fsck expects this). It must be ran quite early - before the restricted modules are loaded - that's why I named it /etc/rcS.d/S06nVidia-on-intel

It works fine both in live CD as well as the installed system. I tested on dapper and edgy.

Ben, even if I disable the addon video chip (the boards I'm working on this have all this setting and none of them works), the issue raises. And the device is still present on the system. Broken bios, I know. As there are some of those boards around, a fix is still needed.

One extra issue is that the onboard video shows up as available (even when it is'nt), the configure option for xorg still selects the onboard video.

To clarify:
- This is tested on stock live CD, so it's not an issue of a machine with extra universe/multiverse stuff.
- I disabled the onboard video on bios setup.
- Both video cards have monitors plugged on it.
- Intel onboard shows nothing even during bios POST.
- Everything from the very start shows up in the monitor plugged on nvidia.
- As soon as the restricted modules are loaded, the machines will hang, restart or panic. The behavior seems not to be deterministic.
- If I use the package included above (by creating a live CD which contains it), the system will boot, but no X for the aformentioned reasons.

This second issue will be detailed in another bug.

Blacklisting nvidia still makes the machine lock.

I found out that this is not only nvidia and i865 related. Several intel chipsets suffers from this issue, and using ATI boards makes the problem appears as well. This makes the bug's relevance critical.

i945 shows the very same problem (which makes this one not being a specific isolated case). Edgy daily builds has this issue as well, which makes this bug not being 2.6.15 related only.

Update: it affects both 32 and 64 bit 2.6 kernels.

I noticed the bug happens with Edgy, Fedora 3, 4, 5 and FC6t1, a Gentoo Derivative called Kororaa, Debian CDD-BR 1.0, Dapper and Breezy. It happens with several different msi and intel boards.

Similar report on SuSE: http://www.forosuse.org/forosuse/showthread.php?t=5736

This still happens on latest feisty 2.6.20-x kernel, and the latest module-init-tools upgrade renders the system unbootable, as it removes the previous /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file.

Beginning with the Hardy Heron 8.04 development cycle, all open Ubuntu kernel bugs need to be reported against the "linux" kernel package. We are automatically migrating this linux-source-2.6.15 kernel bug to the new "linux" package. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we make this transition. Also, if you would be interested in testing the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release, it is available at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . Please let us know your results. Thanks!

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

Same thing happens to me on a HP Pavilion a1106n with i950G Intel Graphics and a nVidia GeForce 6200 PCI. I think the same thing happened when I tried a PCI voodoo3, too.

Also I know that this happens to someone with a HP Pavilion a1000n and a PCI NVidia Verto GeForce FX 5200 card. He also says this:

that its very presence causes kernel update to fail
and so many errors and utter failure
that I couldn't imagine it was ever a working system
it'd half update the kernel
like install it, but not update the version
or vice versa
it was awful, I wanted to give up on Linux forever
removing it from PC and disabling in Bios fixed everything, though

That's what pretty much happens to me.
I fixed it by blacklisting the intel_agp module. The darned thing took me 12 hours to fix.

This particular bug shows up repeatedly in various forms in the Ubuntu and Mint forums. It prevents booting from CD on many, perhaps all Dell or HP computer with onboard graphics where a PCI graphics card has been added. Many of those computers are strapped with a BIOS that allows disabling the PCI card, but not to fully disable the onboard card. Regardless, even with onboard disabled in BIOS, the kernel persists on looking for it anyway, which leads to grief.

Here is the kicker: Hardy, and Hardy alone, is not subject to this bug. What was done differently that time?