Black screen when booting Fedora 41 Live ISO

Ask Fedora
1

I have a ASUS ExpertBook B1 with Intel i5-1235U CPU. When I try to boot the Live ISO Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-41-1.4.iso it is stuck in a black screen doing nothing.

I also tried Debian 12 Live ISO and this one is working.

My question is how to debug this further? Is there any hotkey I can press or command to add so I can see what’s going on and where it gets stuck.

Secure Boot had to be disabled in order to make it boot at all.

I also tried using the iGPU and the Intel Xe GPU (added a RAM DIMM) with the same result.

2

Which boot method did you use?
boot fedora?
test media and boot fedora?
or
Troubleshooting (with basic graphics)?

3

tried both options with the same result (black screen, device can be instantly turned off with the power button)

4

Any way to debug this further?

5

https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/42/Workstation/x86_64/iso/
Try this one
And in general you don’t need to turn secureboot off as fedora have a signed kernel image. After download make sure you check the media with checksum and verify.

6

I tried the linked ISO Fedora-Workstation-Live-42-20250213.n.0.x86_64.iso (verified its checksum) but it has the same issue independent if “start & test” or just “start” is chosen. Device can be turned off instantly with the power button after the selection is made.

7

Does your system have you have Intel Iris Xe Graphics? There are other reports of black screen due to the i915 driver crashing with Xe graphics. You could try a
Fedora 41 respin.

Run inxi -Fzxx using the Debian Live environment (you may have to install inxi in the live environment) and post the output here (as pre-formatted text) so we can understand the hardware configuration.

Arch Linux Intel Graphics has a section on testing the Xe driver.

8

Intel Xe is only activated if a second DIMM is installed. The issue also happened without the second DIMM.
inxi -Fzxx output:

System:
  Kernel: 6.1.0-30-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
    Desktop: GNOME v: 43.9 tk: GTK v: 3.24.38 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM3
    Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: ASUS EXPERTBOOK B1502CBA_B1502CBA
    v: 1.0 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: B1502CBA v: 1.0 serial: <superuser required>
    UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: B1502CBA.310 date: 11/28/2024
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 20.2 Wh (47.9%) condition: 42.2/41.9 Wh (100.7%)
    volts: 11.0 min: 11.8 model: X421-35 serial: N/A status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: 10-core model: 12th Gen Intel Core i5-1235U bits: 64 type: MCP
    smt: disabled arch: Alder Lake rev: 4 cache: L1: 928 KiB L2: 6.5 MiB
    L3: 12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 400 min/max: 400/4400:3300 cores: 1: 400 2: 400 3: 400
    4: 400 5: 400 6: 400 7: 400 8: 400 9: 400 10: 400 bogomips: 49920
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-UP3 GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-12.2 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1,
    DP-2, DP-3, DP-4, HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:46a8
  Device-2: IMC Networks USB2.0 HD UVC WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo
    bus-ID: 3-7:3 chip-ID: 13d3:5463
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.7 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.9
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: gpu: i915 display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: BOE Display 0x09cc res: 1920x1080 dpi: 142
    diag: 395mm (15.5")
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (ADL GT2)
    direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:51c8
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-30-amd64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.65 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:14.3 chip-ID: 8086:51f0
  IF: wlo1 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Intel Ethernet I219-V driver: e1000e v: kernel port: N/A
    bus-ID: 00:1f.6 chip-ID: 8086:1a1f
  IF: eno2 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX201 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
    bus-ID: 3-10:4 chip-ID: 8087:0026
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 3.0
    lmp-v: 5.2 sub-v: 356b
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 477.88 GiB used: 9.91 GiB (2.1%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Micron model: 2400 MTFDKBA512QFM
    size: 476.94 GiB speed: 63.2 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> temp: 26.9 C
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 468.09 GiB used: 9.91 GiB (2.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 299.4 MiB used: 5.8 MiB (2.0%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 28.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 256 Uptime: 9m Memory: 15.25 GiB used: 1.51 GiB (9.9%)
  Init: systemd v: 252 target: graphical (5) default: graphical Compilers:
  gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12 Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2336 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.15
  running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.26
9

Fingerprinter is not shown for some reason. lsusb gives:
CCore FocalTech FT9349 ESS

10

I have a similar issue. You may be able to get to the secondary terminal (t2) by hitting CTL+ALT+F2 at the black screen. Then log in. I’ve tried downgrading MESA, different kernels, neither worked for me. Going to try downgrading the Intel VAAPI driver next. But that is an after coffee task. I run Fedora Plasma spin on 2 machines. I also tried a clean install of Fedora 41 and even Ultramarine. Both booted normally but had the black screen after the first update.

11

Unfortunately CTRL + ALT +F2 does nothing when being stuck at the black screen.

12

Update: I ran Debian 12 the whole time successfully and now tried to upgrade to Debian 13 and after the first reboot it has the same issue like Fedora and also the Debian 13 Live ISO with GNOME is not working and showing the same behaviour like Fedora. Maybe there is a regression kernel issue?
I looked up current kernel versions of these distros:
Debian 12: 6.1
Debian 13: 6.12
Fedora 41 and 42: 6.15

I am a bit out of ideas on where to turn to with this issue and how to produce any error that will help identify the problematic component.

13

Adding further that I tested declining Fedora versions and the last working version is Fedora 38 with kernel.x86_64 6.2.9-300.fc38

I also narrowed it down further and could verify that with kernel version 6.3.7 it is not working anymore.