SOLVED salix live installer - xfce 13.37 ; hangs!

Post Reply
User avatar
mimosa
Salix Warrior
Posts: 3311
Joined: 25. May 2010, 17:02
Contact:

SOLVED salix live installer - xfce 13.37 ; hangs!

Post by mimosa »

I think the same with Maté too. I'm puzzled because I'm pretty sure I've used it before without this trouble. This may well not be the latest version of the script, but it's the one that ships with the 13.37 Live isos.

What happens is it hangs at the progress bar "Please be patient ... Installing full mode packages". Nothing is happening - for at least half an hour, no activity from the CD drive, nothing in the partition:

Code: Select all

root[sda1]# ls
lost+found
root[sda1]# pwd
/mnt/sda1
root[sda1]# 
While I'm about it, I noticed a few other things. Not to criticize :), but I noticed:

There seems not to be an option to choose UTC instead of local time

Can you choose to mount a partition (= entry in /etc/fstab) without formatting it? For instance, a /media/data partition shared with other installations?

Two minor things - if partitions go over 9, they are listed in order 10-1-2-3-..9 (or possibly 1-10-2-3 ...9)

Even more minor: the function to input filesystem type behaves just like the one for partition name. But it makes no sense to input your own string. You should only be able to choose from a list of available types. But this doesn't matter. :)

EDIT

Earlier edit removed - wrong topic!
Last edited by mimosa on 14. Sep 2012, 14:42, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Akuna
Salix Wizard
Posts: 1038
Joined: 14. Jun 2009, 12:25

Re: salix live installer - xfce 13.37 ; hangs!

Post by Akuna »

Thanks for the report and for the useful suggestions and findings.

To resolve the issue regarding the blockage, I will need more details about your setup.
Is it done from a USB key or from a CD-ROM?
32 bit or 64?
Could you lunch the install from the command line and copy paste any error messages?
Also could you post the results of fdisk -l ?

Tx
Image
What really matters is where you are going, not where you come from.
User avatar
mimosa
Salix Warrior
Posts: 3311
Joined: 25. May 2010, 17:02
Contact:

Re: salix live installer - xfce 13.37 ; hangs!

Post by mimosa »

I'll look into this as time allows. I'm sorry this post (and the related one about lilosetup) were rather confused. A reflection of how I felt last night!

I suspect the root of the problem was the attempt to have older and more recent kernels coexisting in the same lilo[setup].conf. This is a hard disk I am populating with Salix versions for a friend, so I won't have it long. However, if I can reproduce the trouble on my own hardware, I can test at leisure.

Also - this machine is 64- bit, but I *think* the problem with the installer hanging also occurred with Maté on an i486 machine. It's strange, because I must have used the same tools before without incident - maybe not that recently, in fact, since I generally use Ratpoison these days and Live anything for rescue purposes or to have on a USB key, not to install it.

In all cases I've been using CDs. A waste I know, but I don't have a spare USB key for this purpose! In some cases, I've been trying to put 32-bit Salix on a 64-bit machine. But that isn't a problem, is it?

As an orientation, it would be helpful to know how long to expect the installation to take. I'd imagine, comparable to a full installation from the install disk? Mind you, the fact that no files at all appeared in the temporary folder is a sure enough sign ...
User avatar
mimosa
Salix Warrior
Posts: 3311
Joined: 25. May 2010, 17:02
Contact:

Re: salix live installer - xfce 13.37 ; hangs!

Post by mimosa »

FWIW:

Code: Select all

root[one]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = setores of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x7eb19171

Dispositivo Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048    30009343    15003648   83  Linux
/dev/sda2        30009344    35960831     2975744   82  Linux swap
/dev/sda3        35960832   625141759   294590464    5  Estendida
/dev/sda5        35962880    64243711    14140416   83  Linux
/dev/sda6        64245760    99020799    17387520   83  Linux
/dev/sda7        99022848   128485375    14731264   83  Linux
/dev/sda8       128487424   159279103    15395840   83  Linux
/dev/sda9       159281152   188164095    14441472   83  Linux
/dev/sda10      188166144   513277951   162555904   83  Linux
However, I think the info in my previous post isn't right. Judging by the CDs I find on my desk, I must have been attempting to install from a Maté USB key. I just installed from a Salix32Xfce CD without apparent problems (except that I have yet to run lilo because of that other problem about lilo version and kernel).

Soon I will have to return this hard disk, perhaps with a smaller selection of Salix flavours than I'd hoped ;); but I will try burning Maté Live to a CD and installing to a vacant partition. I say that because I found myself unable to boot the USB key on this machine ... I think it's a BIOS problem. Unfortunately it's difficult to test this sort of problem systematically, because of all the rebooting, reformatting and so on; all the more so given the difficulty with lilo and kernels. Not difficult ... time-consuming.
User avatar
mimosa
Salix Warrior
Posts: 3311
Joined: 25. May 2010, 17:02
Contact:

Re: salix live installer - xfce 13.37 ; hangs!

Post by mimosa »

I'm afraid I'm at a loss to provide useful information. I can't boot with USB (possibly hardware trouble). Xfce Live installs Salix perfectly happily, but Lilosetup won't recognise the installation; if I add it manually to lilosetup.conf it won't boot or lilosetup fails. I just downloaded and burned a Maté Live CD, forgetting that problem that means it won't boot ... now on yet another hardware setup.

The next logical step would be to try again with a fresh USB key, and I will at some point. But for the time being I'm not sure what else to do to try and work out what is going on. I feel thoroughly muddled, and that's usually a sign of unnoticed User Error.

The only other thing I can think of is the Lilo issue. I have been upgrading lilo to 23.2 to cope with Slackel, but maybe that's *interfering* with the recognition of Salix Xfce 32 on sda1.

I should say all the right files seem to be there in /boot (unlike in the case reported by JRD).

To sum up: since xfce installed ok from Live (even though it won't play with lilosetup, for whatever reason) I decided to try Maté Live. USB won't boot and neither will CD (as discussed at length a while back). So I'm stumped.

Sorry not to be posting more conclusive info.
User avatar
Akuna
Salix Wizard
Posts: 1038
Joined: 14. Jun 2009, 12:25

Re: salix live installer - xfce 13.37 ; hangs!

Post by Akuna »

I'll wait until the dust settles a bit with Salix-14.0 and will effectuate tests in multiple mixed booting environments.
Image
What really matters is where you are going, not where you come from.
djemos
Salix Warrior
Posts: 1433
Joined: 29. Dec 2009, 13:45
Location: Greece

Re: salix live installer - xfce 13.37 ; hangs!

Post by djemos »

mimosa wrote: The only other thing I can think of is the Lilo issue. I have been upgrading lilo to 23.2 to cope with Slackel, but maybe that's *interfering* with the recognition of Salix Xfce 32 on sda1.
What package did you use to upgrade lilo? Here is the lilo 23.2 package for salix which provide the salix.bmp http://people.salixos.org/djemos/lilo/

Try this. Boot from the livecd, then while on live cd download the lilo 23.2 package from the above link, upgrade lilo package and then proceed to installation.
User avatar
mimosa
Salix Warrior
Posts: 3311
Joined: 25. May 2010, 17:02
Contact:

Re: salix live installer - xfce 13.37 ; hangs!

Post by mimosa »

In fact I got the lilosetup part to work inside Slackel, so I must have used that package.

As far as the original problem with the installer is concerned, my hunch is that I didn't prepare the disk properly. There is a Salix installation on sda1 (probably what gave me trouble with the installer) that is not picked up by lilosetup. I think lilosetup with the old lilo may pick it up (don't quote me on that) but it then fails.

If this were my own installation I'd carry on fiddling with it out of curiosity, but in this case, it works, so I'll leave it alone. Really, I should wipe the whole disk and start again ...
djemos
Salix Warrior
Posts: 1433
Joined: 29. Dec 2009, 13:45
Location: Greece

Re: salix live installer - xfce 13.37 ; hangs!

Post by djemos »

mimosa wrote:In fact I got the lilosetup part to work inside Slackel, so I must have used that package.
This is what i told you about.
lilo-23.2 package from above link is for salix not slackel.
lilo-23.2 package is different in salix and slackel concerning salix.bmp.
So if you have installed lilo-23.2 from slackel and not from link wrote above, then cause trouble, try finding salix.bmp when it is not exist.
Since lilosetup worked on slackel, will work on salix too.
User avatar
mimosa
Salix Warrior
Posts: 3311
Joined: 25. May 2010, 17:02
Contact:

Re: salix live installer - xfce 13.37 ; hangs!

Post by mimosa »

To sum up, there were two problems here:

1) the Live installer hung (no files were put on the partition at all, IIRC);

2) trouble with Lilosetup

1) looks to me to have been because of an error in wiping the disk and creating new partitions.

Assuming one is using Gparted, what is the best procedure? Just create a new MBR table and create the partitions? I'm afraid I canno longer remember what I did this time ...

2) may partly have been a consequence of 1), but it was also because of using the wrong lilo, at least some of the time

That's a problem for 13.37 Live, because even if corrected in the repos, many users won't do a package upgrade before installing. As the new kernel branch becomes more widely used, lilosetup will fail more often. However, one can assume that once 14.0 Live is available, pretty much everyone will download that.

I'm going to mark this solved. Thanks to djemos and Akuna for your help.
Post Reply