Solved: “[Firmware Bug] ACPI No _BQC method”, initial brightness problem when installing Linux

Tried to install OpenElec and Ubuntu on a mini-ITX Sapphire White system and every time I tried to run the installer, I got a blank screen.
So I booted OpenElec (and Ubuntu) without the ‘quiet’ option from the kernel parameters and I was able to see this error:

[Firmware Bug] ACPI No _BQC method, cannot determine initial brightness

IMG_4599

My system is NOT a laptop so I don’t care about brightness. Searching for a solution on the internet got me nowhere; it involved recompiling kernels but that’s not very useful when I still need to install the Linux distribution.

But I found a solution! Forcing this entry into the kernel parameters while booting the installer:

acpi_backlight=vendor

… it solved my problems! So, OpenElec and Ubuntu are now installing without problems.

BUT, don’t forget to modify your installed distro to reflect the same parameter! If you use OpenElec, you’ll need to manually add the parameter when booting it, SSH into your box and remount the /flash mount as RW (mount -o remount,rw /flash), so you can edit the syslinux.cfg file and add the parameter.

Mac OSX 10.7 on ESXi and ‘root device uuid is xxx.xxx’ error

I moved my (fully working) OSX 10.7.4 installation from my old ESXi 5 white-box (with an Intel i5 720) to a new one (with an Intel i7 3770). And guess what: OSX didn’t boot.

Just some lines and this last output:

Root device UUID is xxxx.xxx.xx.xxxx

Crap. Google just came back with two (2 !) search results, neither of them giving me a solution. But wait, I’ve found it anyway:

– edit the VM settings with the VM powered off
– click on the Options tab
– click on the CPUID Mask menu item
– click Advanced
– scroll to the bottom of the window on the Virtual Machine Default tab
– under “Level 1” set “eax” to 0000:0000:0000:0001:0000:0110:1010:0101.

After clicking OK and OK, boot up the VM and voilà, your OSX installation is running again!

Yahoo!