On 2015-01-25 11:44, Brian May wrote:
I have a i7 based HP computer here that until recently was booting Linux and Windows just fine. According to the user, it stopped working after updating the graphics drivers under Windows.
Do you have access to the PC in person? If not, I'd recommend getting access.
* Selecting any Linux kernel from grub, results in the computer freezing immediately after loading the kernel (no time to initialize the kernel), with a black screen.
Have you tried booting without the 'quiet' option on the kernel command-line? Also have you tried blacklisting the 'nouveau' driver? I forget exactly how to do this in Debian but I'm sure it's straightforward. I have a very similar-sounding HP computer (HP ENVY Phoenix 810-110a) that also came with a GeForce GT 640 which the nouveau driver is _completely_ broken in. Basically I get to the kernel message "fb: switching to nouveaufb from EFI VGA" and nothing proceeds beyond that point. (I also boot in UEFI mode.) My solution was either to use the NVIDIA proprietary driver (most distro packages for the binary driver will blacklist nouveau as a side-effect) or to use the integrated Intel graphics instead.