Installation via boot.iso

[wobo]

Motivated (or rather animated) by a thread in the German Mageia forum I tried a net install of cauldron, using the current boot.iso.

Machine: Lenovo netbook S10e, 4Gb ESSD, 2GB RAM, Intel 945 graphics, Boradcom BCM4312 LP-PHY)
Media: /Mageia/distrib/cauldron/i586/install/images/boot.iso

I "dd'd" the iso to a usb key and booted. The first attempt failed because there was no network, Alt+F3 says:

Code: Select all

PCI: device 14e4 4315 14e4 04b5 is "Broadcom Corp|BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY", driver is wl
have to insmod wl
warning: unable to get module filename for wl
needs wl
   error reading wl: no such file or directory
warning. insmod failed (wl (null)) (-1)
found net interface eth0
interface eth0 doesn't support wireless

So I plugged in a cable and tried again. The installation procedure started and went by without any error, but:

1. First I let it use the standard (Gnome marked as desktop). In the summary the graphic system showed as "not configured". Configuring it caused a message "xdm needs to be installed" - Why? Should not Gnome automatically install and use gdm? Well, it did not.
Anyhow, after installation I rebooted and xdm came up. It was not possible to login, each time after giving the password the xdm screen came up again.

2. Next I used the standard KDE option. Same thing as with Gnome, no graphic system configured, asking for xdm to be installed. After reboot no login possible.

3. Then I went through the time consuming "Custom" installation, including individual package selection. I opted for the Gnome desktop with a small selection of applications (for a start). This time the graphic system was configured automatically and after reboot gdm came up, login worked and I had a working system. Even the Gnome shell works alright.

So, judging from this experience there is something in the configuration of the 2 standards which prevents the graphics configuration. Also the related dm is not installed (both things may be related).

Problems I found so far:
1. After blanking the screen the system does not come back by mouse or keyboard action. Screen stays dark. You have to shut down the system by a short push on the power switch. This may be caused by the graphic driver.
2. Touchpad is only partly working. Mouse moves and mouse buttons are fine but mouse clicks only work with the buttons below the touchpad.

EDIT:
Touchpad is working ok now. As default mouse clicks via touchpad are de-activated! (Why this? Isn't mouse click one of the normal touchpad operations?)

[wobo]

Another construction site is the Broadcom wifi connection. I activated non-free and tainted - then opened mcc -> networking to set up a new connection. Selecting "wireless" the system showed the Broadcom chip as available device. After selecting this a couple of packages were installed (kernel-devel, dkms, etc.) but it ended with "Can not detect any network for the selected device (using module wl)" (translation from German Es ist nicht möglich, eine Netzwerkschnittstelle für das ausgewählte Gerät zu finden (verwende Treiber wl). So I have to wade through all those "Broadcom" postings in the forum to find a solution....

EDIT:
Newbie mistake! The module was not built "on-the-fly", after reboot the module was built and I saw all the available networks. Then the same occurred as I already experienced with my laptop: I had to de-install networkmanager to get a working wifi connection! Just entering "USE_NETWORKMANAGER = no" in the configuration files or removing the relevant mark in the GUI does not work, the package 'networkmanager' has to be absent.

So, now I have 2 different setups:
2 different networks (one with dlink router/AP to a phone line based 6Mbit connection and one with a cisco router/AP to a cable based 32MBit connection)
2 different machines with different wifi chips (one laptop with Atheros and one netbook with Broadcom)
In all 4 possible cases I have to remove networkmanager to get a working connection with Mageia 1 and Mageia cauldron.

Ok, this is another story, it just came up while completing the installation which is the issue of this thread. Sorry.

[Umeaboy]

I sure hope that when the iso for Cauldron is out that it'll fix my WiFi-issue displayed here:

https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1238

[doktor5000]

I sure hope that when the iso for Cauldron is out

What do you mean by that? The boot.iso and all.img are available for cauldron since it started ...
https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Installation ... k_Installs

Also the network install images will surely not fix your rfkill issue, because that is not even available there.
Please accept the fact that network install via wireless/3G is not a supported use case for Mageia currently.

[wilcal]

I have to share that I have been completely
unsuccessful to get my initial install of
Mageia 2 via the boot.iso. Every repo I
attempt to use is either too slow or stalls
completely. My favorite is mirrors.kernal.org
that being the fastest for me. But that
stalls forever at the estimating install time.
If I go to some of the mirrors i Europe

distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr
ftp.mandrivauser.de

or even

distro.ibiblio.org stalls on estimating.

the European repos for me do get an estimated
install time. Ya, 55 hours.

So I await the iso's

[doktor5000]

mirrors.kernel.org = is problematic, depending on your DNS name resolution, see https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1967#c8
distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr = syncs really often, but is rather slow because it's used frequently
ftp.mandrivauser.de = should be ok, syncs every two hours
distro.ibiblio.org = is broken if i remember correctly: https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1921

But why don't you just install via a Mageia 1 DualArch CD and then upgrade to cauldron?

[Ken-Bergen]

mirrors.kernel.org = is problematic, depending on your DNS name resolution, see https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1967#c8

That should be "was" as mirrors.kernel.org resolves correctly now as evidenced by wilcal getting to the estimating stage of the installation.

I've been thinking of a fresh install of cauldron so now might be the time for a test.

[wilcal]

I've been thinking of a fresh install of cauldron so now might be the time for a test.

I'm wait'n for the ISO's this Friday. For me that will be a stake
in the ground and a good place to start. Should that become
successful I'll then do a rsync of the cauldron repo on
mirrors.kernel.org here locally and then use that going
forward.

Thanks all for the tips. Can't wait for the weekend.

[Ken-Bergen]

I've been thinking of a fresh install of cauldron so now might be the time for a test.

I'm wait'n for the ISO's this Friday. For me that will be a stake
in the ground and a good place to start. Should that become
successful I'll then do a rsync of the cauldron repo on
mirrors.kernel.org here locally and then use that going
forward.

Thanks all for the tips. Can't wait for the weekend.

A fresh install started here from mirrors.kernel.org.
About 7:30 hrs estimated but as we know the estimate is always high.

Edit: I just reread your post and saw

My favorite is mirrors.kernal.org
that being the fastest for me. But that
stalls forever at the estimating install time.

That phase has always been slow but while it's estimating the install is happening.
The installer has to check download speed and computer speed to get an idea of how long it will take. I believe it just uses background cpu time so as not to interfere with the install which is a good thing.

[Ken-Bergen]

Installation finished without a hitch.