Miles O'Neal wrote:

> I would look into a new video driver. Which driver were you using?

Nouveau, last updated a year ago in January.  I have now found this in the
7.4 release notes (should have looked before!):

   "The default DDX driver has changed to be xf86-video-modesetting.
   The previous defaults were xf86-video-nouveau (Nvidia hardware)
   and xf86-video-intel (Intel hardware)."

Sorry for my ignorance, but is there a way at the boot command to restore
the old default?  Or some other better approach?

One puzzle: this last kernel/firmware update, which caused the blank
screen after boot, seems to have been a 7.4 update, but /etc/sl-release
shows me still as 7.3.

Thanks.

Steve Talbott

>
>> On Feb 23, 2018, at 17:11, Steve Talbott <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Greetings, all --
>>
>> Courtesy of an SL7 kernel and firmware update yesterday (yum details
>> below), I get an eternal black screen upon booting not only the new
>> kernel:
>>
>>   kernel-3.10.0-693.17.1.el7.x86_64
>>
>> but also the previous one:
>>
>>   kernel-3.10.0-693.2.2.el7.x86_64
>>
>> and the one before that, as well as the rescue kernels in my grub menu
>> So
>> I have lost all useful access to my computer. I can, however, access the
>> disk and all my files by mounting them from a 7.3 live install disk. My
>> computer is an HP Pavilion desktop.
>>
>> The command I executed was simply:
>>
>>  # yum update
>>
>> Updates other than the kernel occur automatically, and, as you can see
>> from the above, it was a fair while since I had last updated the kernel.
>> My system was initially installed as 7.3. I've never been quite clear,
>> based on seemingly contradictory indications, whether it is now "on the
>> way" to 7.4, or is already a fully qualified 7.4 system. It's whatever
>> the
>> automatic updates (and my occasional kernel updates) have given me.
>>
>> I am not competent to do much with the messages from /var/log/messages,
>> but as far as I can tell they look more or less normal. I don't see any
>> sign of some glaring fatal error. If someone would like me to extract a
>> relevant subset of them, I should be able to do so.
>>
>> I gather that the yum updates can't be rolled back.  Any advice on how
>> to
>> proceed from here? (This is secondary, but it would be temporaily
>> helpful
>> if I could chroot to the root of my filesystem from the live install
>> DVD,
>> and do some work. The live install disk doesn't seem to give an option
>> of
>> going into rescue mode.)
>>
>> The yum log shows: