Mint 20.1 - Finally

booman

Grand High Exalted Mystic Emperor of Linux Gaming
Staff member
I've been on Mint 19 for a long time and upgraded to 19.2 & 19.3
I'm pretty sure its been over a year since I've been on Mint 19.3 and I'm pretty sure I even upgraded to 19 from Mint 18.3

So I finally decided to pickup a new $500.00 SSD since the prices have been dropping considerably. Downloaded Mint 20.1 and did a fresh install on a new drive. The reason I prefer a "fresh install" over an upgrade is to remove any forgotten apps, lingering game files or residual files from uninstalled applications. Unfortunately I have a spare 1Terabyte drive as my /home which means a lot of those residual files still exist.

I install Mint 20.1 on the new drive and did some updates. Then I mounted the 1Terabyte drive as /home in FSTAB and rebooted... everything was perfect! I only had to install a few missing apps like:
  • Chrome
  • Minetest
  • VLC
  • GZDoom
  • DOSBox
  • scrot
  • OpenShot Video Editor
  • Themes
  • Steam
Within two hours I had everything ready to go and back in business!
Did I mention... I LOVE LINUX!!!

The only problem I have noticed are some errors at boot but nothing that breaks my system in any way.

boot errors.jpg


I'm pretty sure its related to hardware and the kernel, but I don't have any symptoms as the only accessories I'm using are:
  • 5.1 Home Theater (analog connectors)
  • USB Wireless Keyboard & Mouse (Logitech)
  • USB Amazon Basics Xbox Controller
  • Acer 27" Monitor

I did a bit of research and haven't had any success yet, so maybe waiting it out could fix this issue with kernel updates?

Research:

AMD-Vi: Event logged [IO_PAGE_FAULT device=02:00.0 domain=0x0011...

https://us.informatiweb.net/tutorials/it/bios/enable-iommu-or-vt-d-in-your-bios.html


Solution 1:
Disable IOMMU in ASUS UEFI Bios
Failed! Ended up disabling my network port and USB ports

Solution 2:
  1. Open Terminal
  2. sudo nano /etc/default/grub
  3. Edit the line that says GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
  4. Add iommu=soft
    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet iommu=soft splash"
  5. Save the file
  6. Issue the command sudo update-grub
  7. Reboot
I haven't tried this step yet, but its worth a try...
 
I tried disabling IOMMU on my ASUS UEFI but it disabled my network and USB functionality.
I noticed in the error there is: xhci_hcd
I think there is a portion in the ASUS UEFI that has xhci too.... not sure what that controls?

[research]
eXtensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI)
Is a computer interface specification that defines a register-level description of a host controller for Universal Serial Bus (USB), which is capable of interfacing with USB 1. x, 2.0, and 3. x compatible devices.
 
Usually such boot errors can be safely ignored. Those few times I've researched boot messages I get, they have always turned up to be warnings about Firmware bugs in the motherboard UEFI. Older kernels either didn't pick up on it or simply ignored it, while newer kernels more frequently are more verbose about it.

If you don't have any actual problems, such as hardware components not working properly, or interfaces being buggy, or unusually slow boot, then I would not worry. You could always try to silence the warnings, but that does not really serve any purpose.

In any case, congrats on Mint 20.1.
 
Thanks Daerandin!
I thought about ignoring them too. Nothing seems affected by it, but at the same time I don't really use USB 3.0 at home. I do have a USB 3.0 cable for connecting SATA drives, but it doesn't get a lot of use on my computer. Its one of those things where if I need it... I've got it.

Do you think "quite iommu" will mess up anything in my system on boot?
 
The "quiet" option does not mess up anything. It prevents boot messages from displaying during the boot process. It does not actually alter anything, and the same messages are available in the system log. I think error messages will still be shown, even if you use quiet.

As for iommu, according to the kernel documentation, you need to provide some value. The kernel documentation lists the following:

Kernel Documentation said:
iommu=
off
force
noforce
biomerge
panic
nopanic
merge
nomerge
soft
pt [X86]
nopt [X86]
nobypass [PPC/POWERNV]
Disable IOMMU bypass, using IOMMU for PCI devices.

I could not find any more detailed documentation on this from a quick search. One thing, the post you linked to about this is very old, about 8 years. Stuff usually change a lot in the kernel in that time so I'd be careful with a topic that old. You might want to try some of the options, but as I said if things actually work then I would not worry at all.

You might also want to just try a different kernel version. I think Mint 20.1 is on kernel 5.4 by default, by also offers 5.8. So if you are on the default 5.4, try out the 5.8 kernel to see if things change.
 
I'll stick with your initial advice and do nothing. I don't want to break anything else in the process due to my lack of knowledge.
Everything is still working fine! That post is definitely old, but they have the same motherboard too. I'll upgrade to newer kernels as they are available.

Thanks for your help
 
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