Fedora 21: Dark login screen during and after install

[Jim Lewis]

Hello all,

  This is pretty strange so I thought I better mention it. Here's the
scenario:

- Have already installed Fedora 21 Mate-Compiz Spin on a Lenovo T500
laptop that I bought from IBM in 2009. Thanks to the help from this forum
it seems to be running well.

- Decided to install it on one of my newer T500s. It is a bit different as
it has a fingerprint reader and built in camera. Using the same DVD as
before, right at the first installation panel, something happens to the
screen. At first it looks just fine, then it blacks out for about a second
then comes back on but very dark. There is a prompt right in the center of
the screen asking for a password. WTF? I don't remember this from the
install on the other system. I press Enter a bunch of times, the screen
goes back to normal, and proceeds with the next steps.

- Every goes fine until the reboot. That same dark screen comes up. It
will not accept my password (for guest1) until I leave it empty. The
screen comes up with the Computer, Home, and Trash icons but no panels. I
can find no way to add them.

- Thinking that this is hopeless I decide to run a full update (yum -y
update). It completes and I shutdown cold and then reboot. Damn thing
comes up just fine, with panels too. It's been running fine for about 24
hours now.

-  I looked at dmesg on both systems. I see this on the newer one:

[  2.885818] VGA switcheroo: detected switching method
\_SB_.PCI0.VID_.ATPX handle

 I also checked lspci on both but don't see anything relevant.


    I am concerned that the dark screen will return someday and my panels
will be lost again. If anyone has even a clue as to what is going on I
sure would like to hear it. At this point I suspect Fedora 21 doesn't
like something in the BIOS on this "newer" machine. Note that Fedora
20 installed with no issues and runs great on it.


Jim Lewis