Aurora-surface 41 boot issue

[trekker99]

Describe the bug

The latest from aurora-surface:latest seems to be using a bazzite kernel instead of a aurora surface kernel, resulting in my Surface Pro 6 not being able to boot. I have rolled back for the time being.

What did you expect to happen?

Aurora 41 boots on a Microsoft Surface Pro 6.

Output of rpm-ostree status

No response

Output of groups

No response

Extra information or context

No response

[TheElbinho]

Same issue on Surface Pro 5

[m2Giles]

We have recently switched to the bazzite kernel for asus and surface images. The bazzite kernel carries the same surface linux patches.

What do you mean that it fails to boot?

[TheElbinho]

What do you mean that it fails to boot?

Freezes right after Grub prompt ("Booting Aurora 41 from Fedora Kinoite...")

I first suspected a Secure Boot issue, as the Surface is a bit special in this regard, but disabling Secure Boot didn't help.

I tried getting some info from ujust log-last-boot, but it seems to fail before any kind of log is generated

I also rolled back to 40 for now

[m2Giles]

https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/tree/master/patches%2F6.11

Will check that all of these are in bazzite-kernel.

The fact yours completely fails to boot is a bit of a concern. There is a PR to make sure that the previous surface modules are apart of the initramfs.

[TheElbinho]

To be fair, there have been more recent releases since it failed for me. I think the one I tried was 41-20241108

[trekker99]

I get the exact same behaviour as TheElbinho. Recovering on a surface is a bit troublesome as I don't have the surface keyboard and breaking out the wired keyboard needs to be planned ahead.

[m2Giles]

I've confirmed that all patches are in the bazzite kernel. Do either of you have encryption enabled as well?

[trekker99]

Nope, encryption is not enabled. I tried the latest and still cannot boot. Back to the last build. I'm not sure if the move to 41 is the real issue and not the bazzite kernel persay.

[TheElbinho]

Also no encryption on my Surface

[m2Giles]

We have added the same initramfs changes that were in the previous surface builds.

[TheElbinho]

Just tried :latest again, out of curiosity. Still no change.

I would love to generate more substantial and constructive feedback, but I don't know how.

[trekker99]

Just tried the latest. Same issue. Can't boot.

[trekker99]

I removed quiet from the boot options but no debug print to console. It hangs even before the first log message is printed out.

[neononyx]

I am trying to do a fresh install of Aurora on my Surface Pro 7
Have Secure Boot disabled (Is/Was running KDE Neon okay before)
Boots to grub asking
"Install aurora-hew 41"
"Test this media & install aurora-hew 41"
"Troubleshooting -->"

All options lead to a black screen with a single "_" at the top left of the screen (Not blinking)
Device is totaly unresponsive untill force shutdown.

[trekker99]

To the maintainers of the Aurora surface build, are there anything else we can do to help track down the issues?

[sojay]

I tried the latest-41.20241203.1 on my Surface Book 2, and it won't boot. Same issues reported by @trekker99 @TheElbinho . Reverted to 40 for now.

[anchiornis]

I am having the same issue with a Surface Pro 7+ and Bluefin 41. Is there any information I can provide to help solve this problem?

[TheElbinho]

https://universal-blue.discourse.group/t/something-happen-to-the-asus-image-and-kernel/5484/5

Seems like I shouldn't get too attached to that cool Linux Distro I found a few weeks ago, that already was pre-configured for my old Surface

[anchiornis]

Am I understanding it correctly that Universal Blue is likely going to drop support for Microsoft Surface relatively soon, and what would this currently entail roughly (would it still book, would certain elements not work, etc.)?

[TheElbinho]

That's how I understood it, yes. (Although this isn't an absolute statement, there still seems to be some uncertainty, whether support will be dropped come Version 42)

If there is someone with knowledge and interest, maybe they will build a Ublue Distro for Surface support.

I don't know what exactly will and won't work for you anymore. I'm in the group where the current releases with the Bazzite kernel don't boot anymore, but maybe it'll turn out fine for you. The integrated hardware may need some further configuring in the future. Webcam and Digitizer, but also stuff like the Bluetooth antenna may need some extra work.

That being said, I'm not especially knowledgable in the matter, so take all I said with a pound of salt. I'm just another guy looking for the right distro for my old Surface.

[sojay]

Today, I can confirm that I have successfully booted into 41, bluefin-dx-surface:latest on my Surface Book 2. see my rpm-ostree status output below

rpm-ostree status
State: idle
AutomaticUpdates: stage; rpm-ostreed-automatic.timer: no runs since boot
Deployments:
● ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bluefin-dx-surface:latest
                   Digest: sha256:896c550fd6892108d51eb62b384e0b9393ed2bd7e03ba8fc1e4f2eefadf519fe
                  Version: latest-41.20241223.1 (2024-12-23T05:10:45Z)
          LayeredPackages: autofs

  ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bluefin-dx-surface:gts
                   Digest: sha256:197b3169ec8b34050604c13812f56f4e0f1af0e8de9a1e949bef5ca3b31db1c9
                  Version: 40.20241102.0 (2024-11-03T17:58:20Z)
             InitramfsEtc: /etc/crypttab /etc/modules-load.d/ublue-surface.conf
                   Pinned: yes

[TheElbinho]

Can also confirm aurora-surface 41.20241228 is working on my Surface Pro 5

[john-okeefe]

I just tried to rebase to aurora-dx-surface:latest on my Surface Go 1 and no luck. Reverted back to 40.

[john-okeefe]

I would also like to note that this is not a matter of booting. It you press Ctrl+Atl+F4 you will be dropped into a commandline login. The issue is SDDM is not starting.

[110errm]

I just tried to rebase to aurora-dx-surface:latest on my Surface Go 1 and no luck. Reverted back to 40.

No luck on a fresh install on my Surface Go 1. Switching to Fedora Kinoite 41 with standard kernel and everything works out of the box.

[110errm]

#8 (comment)

Workaround from this thread is working on my Surface Go 1:

sudo rpm-ostree override remove kf6-kimageformats

Aurora-Surface-dx up and running. thx