Re: No console anymore. How to figure this out.

Hello, Dale.

On Mon, Mar 16, 2026 at 02:07:40 -0500, Dale wrote:
> On 3/15/26 8:04 PM, Dale wrote:
> > On 3/15/26 7:00 PM, Dale wrote:

[ .... ]

> > Update.  None of this worked.  Everything I disabled resulted in a 
> > failed kernel make.  I had to go back to the original config.  It 
> > appears the things I have enabled must be enabled for the kernel to 
> > finish the make process.

> > I'm going to try to reboot in a bit.  Supposed to be storms here 
> > shortly and power may fail and I'll have to shutdown anyway.  The 
> > storms look kinda ugly on the radar.  o_O

> > Any more ideas?  Maybe the re-emerge of nvidia-drivers will work. One 
> > can hope.

> > Dale

> > :-)  :-)


> OK.  I didn't lose power during the storm but I have rebooted.  The 
> updated nvidia drivers is in use now.  Still no console.  I have no idea 
> where to go next.  Changing options in the kernel, which has worked for 
> many months, results in a failed make due to missing kernel drivers.  
> Changing nvidia drivers didn't help either.

> I checked the inittab file to see if anything got changed but it looks 
> like it always has.  Of course, since I could login blindly and reboot, 
> we know agetty is being spawned like normal.  I might add, during the 
> boot up, the usual kernel lines and services starting was scrolling up 
> the screen.  The best I can figure, once the GUI starts, it can't switch 
> back to a console.

> Anybody have other ideas?

Not much of one, but could you please check that
CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE is enabled in your kernel?  It's found at
Device Drivers/Graphics support/Console display driver
support/Framebuffer Console support.

Without this, a there is no console to display on the framebuffer.  But
seeing as how you see boot messages, it's probably set anyway.  But maybe
you're seeing the boot messages through grub's text handling, I don't
know.  Switching the display from boot loader to kernel, then from one
framebuffer to another is complicated, and probably not wholly defined.
But it's got to worth the time for a quick check.

> Thanks.

> Dale

> :-)  :-)

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).