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I'm using a MacBook Pro 5,5, with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, installed as a single boot Ubuntu system, with no OSX resources left on the the hard drive. This was originally installed as Gnome-Ubuntu, but Gnome was subsequently removed.

I was in the middle of editing an .odt document in LibreOffice (attempting to split a large single cell table) when the screen froze, with all keys and key combinations inactive.

  • A straight reboot freezes with a grey screen.
  • A reboot from an earlier version freezes at "Loading initial ramdisk..."
  • A reboot in recovery mode freezes at "ehci-pci 0000:00:04:1: irq 22, io mem 0xd3489200"

Adding 'acpi=off' to the end of the Linux line of the boot script for recovery mode progresses as far as this 'DOS style' dialogue box:

|--------------------------------------------
| Recovery Menu (filesystem state: read-only)
|
|   resume      Resume normal boot
|   clean       ...

... and so on

No key combination will move the cursor or generate a response at this stage, but after a minute of so the dialogue accepts a response (presumably "resume") and continues the boot sequence.

It then gets to:

Welcome to emergency mode!
...[some suggestions]...
Press Enter for maintenance
(or press Control-D to continue):

and there it hangs.

[Edit] As with the recovery menu dialogue box, no key combination (including Ctrl-D) will generate a response/

I've tried booting from Ubuntu on a USB stick, and from a Ubuntu DVD, but holding down the [alt/option] key at power up shows the installed Ubuntu system as the only option (and holding down the 'c' key during power up activates the superdrive, but doesn't show the Ubuntu DVD as a boot option).

Using the 'ls' command in grub only shows the disk partitions on the internal hard drive (not the DVD or the USB stick)

I'm stuck. What should I try next?

======================

[Edit 20170303] Progress, but not a complete solution yet. I followed the suggestions in this article, with acpi=off added to the second line.

grub> set root=(hd0,2)
grub> linux /boot/vmlinuz-4[...]-generic root=/dev/sda2 acpi=off
grub> initrd /boot/initrd.img-4[...]-generic
grub> boot

The MacBook booted, and progressed as far as the Ubuntu login screen. BUT still no response to keypresses, either from the inbuilt keyboard or from an external USB keyboard. Booting with the external USB keyboard and mouse in place doesn't help.

Still looking for helpful advice...

vandem
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  • When you installed Ubuntu could you boot from USB? – Organic Marble Mar 01 '17 at 11:44
  • My recollection of the install process is not perfect. I think I tried a Unetbootin USB image (which I now realise doesn't work on Macs) without success. This time I'm trying a USB formatted as Mac-OS (journalled), with an Ubuntu .img file as described here – vandem Mar 02 '17 at 03:31

1 Answers1

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Proceed from this step,

Welcome to emergency mode!
...[some suggestions]...
Press Enter for maintenance
(or press Control-D to continue):

Provide your root password here and do :

df -h

And identify the partition which is mounted on /, for example

 Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on  
  /dev/sda1        58G   23G   33G  42% /  

Now run the command:

fsck /dev/sda1   

Proceed with several options which promt in mode of yes/no. Choose yes or y until this not finish and when finished restart the system. This will recover the read-only problem.

anand
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  • For some reason the keyboard is inactive a this stage. No key press or key combination is accepted. – vandem Mar 01 '17 at 19:10
  • if maintenance mode is appears than you dont need any key to press, only enter password. If still keyboard not working than plug it in another port – anand Mar 02 '17 at 04:01
  • And how might I enter a password ? As noted above (and edited into the question) at this stage, the MacBook accepts no keystrokes whatsoever, either from its own keyboard, or an external USB keyboard. – vandem Mar 02 '17 at 04:56
  • At this stage you dont need to use ctl+D, just enter password. keyboard should work if not than try with external keyboard. Plz do some research regarding keyboard issue, also follow this : http://askubuntu.com/questions/75358/how-do-i-get-my-usb-keyboard-to-not-freeze-up-in-the-recovery-menu – anand Mar 02 '17 at 05:07
  • I tried the options suggested at the link - unplugging all USB devices, and adding 'acpi=off nohz=off' to the boot script. Still no ability to enter any keyboard input whatsoever at this stage of the process. Seems to be a longstanding bug, which is not fully resolved. – vandem Mar 02 '17 at 06:11