Installation problems with Mageia 3

[markhobley]

Here I am attempting to install mageia on an HP Compaq computer.

An error occurs during intial boot:

[0.000000] tsc: Fast TSC calibration failed

Ignore this error and mageia continues to boot normally.

From the boot menu, choose: Boot Mageia 3

Choose a language: English, Timezone: London, Hardware clock set to GMT, Keyboard:UK

Error: Gnome3 failed to load, Button: Close

From terminal: md5sum /dev/cdrom 44fe065f37756112e4c282f82678b40f

Icon: Install on Hard Disk, Button: Next

Use existing partitions. Disk partitioning scheme is as follows:

/dev/sda1 /boot (650MB) /dev/sda5 / (650MB) /dev/sda7 /usr (8GB) /dev/sda9 /var (9GB)

Choose partitions you want to format: sda1, sda5, sda6 Button: Next

Prompt: Remove the following packages: Unused hardware support: Ticked, Button: Next

After the files have copied, an error occurs: Unable to copy files to new root.

Button: OK The installation process aborts at this point, and there is no option to ingnore the error and continue to install a bootloader.

I now attempt to install a bootloader from terminal as root:

mount -o bind /dev /mnt/install/dev
mount -t proc none /mnt/install/proc
mount -t sysfs none /mnt/install/sys
chroot /mnt/install
dbus-uuidgen --ensure

In chroot using vi, create /etc/lilo.conf as follows:

boot=/dev/sda
root=/dev/sda5
delay=20
vga=normal
default=Linux
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=Linux read-only

cd / lilo Fatal:Trying to map files from unnamed device 0x0011 (NFS/RAID mirror down ?)

mount /dev/sda5 /
mount /dev/sda1 /boot
lilo

Following reboot from hard drive an error occurs as follows:

VFS: Cannot open root device "805" or unknown-block(8,5) error -6 Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions: (There are no partitions listed here.)

FWIW, I repeated this with additional line in lilo.conf as follows:
append "root=/dev/sda5"

However, the VFS error reoccurs and mageia will not boot.

[ghmitch]

1) The error "[0.000000] tsc: Fast TSC calibration failed" is meaningless. It has to do with a BIOS function that is not even used by Linux at this point.

2) You have gotten some random errors along the way. Perhaps someone else will recognize some of them. I don't since I never install from live CD or live DVD. I am not sure whether they actually are causing your boot failure though. It doesn't look like it to me, but I might be wrong, it wouldn't be the first time. But they could be an indication that you may have further problems down the line.

3) As for the boot failure itself, it looks like the booting kernel cannot see your disk drive at all. As if perhaps the initrd image does not contain support for the drive? That is what I would suspect, some issue with the initrd image. The booting kernel has to have support for the drive containing the root partition in order to mount it. That is usually included in the initrd image that is created when the bootloader is created. Without initrd support, the kernel itself must have drive support and everything else compiled in. But what puzzles me is that it is not showing you 'available partitions' on the failure. The would certainly look like it can't even see the drive for some reason. Whoa! Wait a minute! Mageia employs USR MOVE aka USR MERGE. With this architecture, you have no choice but to use initrd, without initrd support a successful boot is not possible. I am not sure that is the cause of the error you are seeing, but you won't get much farther without initrd support.

[markhobley]

Ahh, ok. I didn't add an initrd to the lilo config. I will try that now. Cheers, Mark.

[markhobley]

Right. There is another problem. I don't actually have an initrd image:

From the chroot:

ls -l /boot
initrd-desktop586.img -> initrd-3.8.13-desktop586-1.mga3.img
initrd.img -> initrd-3.8.13-desktop586-1.mga3.img

There is no such file as initrd-3.8.13-desktop586-1.mga3.img

Can I extract this from the installation disk somehow, or can I download it from somewhere?

[markhobley]

FWIW This file does not exist in the system /boot either, which has the same dangling symlinks.

[markhobley]

bootloader-config --action rebuild-initrds rebuilds initrd, and the file now exists. I now get a different problem on bootup:

Initial ramdisk is below 4Mb; kernel overwrite is possible
.........................
BIOS Data check successful.

The screen then goes black and caps/lock and scroll lock lights flash on keyboard (kernel has crashed).

[markhobley]

I changed the monitor, and it turns out that the hang at this point is because /sbin/init is not found.. From a rescue disk, I mounted /dev/sda5 and it turns out that /sbin is symlinked to /usr/sbin and /bin is symlinked to /usr/bin. The hang is occuring because /usr has not been mounted. How do I force /usr to mount before the kernel passes control to /sbin/init?

[markhobley]

Following some shuffling around, the system is now booting from the hard disk. It gives an error that there is a problem with the graphical display, and drops me to a command prompt. I run drakx11 and this gives a warning:
The following packages will need to be installed:
task-x11

It does not seem to be picking this up from the live disk, but I will keep fiddling to see if I can fix.

Cheers,

Mark.

[markhobley]

Errors now are:
unable to access synthesis file of "Live Core", medium ignored
unable to access synthesis file of "Live Nonfree", medium ignored.

It appears my /var partition has not been mounted. I have added an entry to /etc/fstab as follows:

/dev/sda7 /var ext2 defaults 0 2

However, this still does not become mounted at startup. Is there a recommended way to configure automatic mount points, or is there a specific script I should edit to cause the mount?

[doktor5000]

Shouldn't you first try to reinstall cleanly for your system to reach a consistent and working state?

[ghmitch]

I think doktor is right on this. You would be ahead to just download an INSTALL CD, the small minimum one, and do a fresh install right over the top of what is already there. If you continue on the path you are on, it might be a LONG journey although you are learning a lot in the process I am sure. One of the main reasons I do not install from live disk is exactly the problem you are having. An advantage of using an install disk instead is that if it crashes out of the install, you can always go back and reboot from the install disk and it will almost always pick up where it left off until you end up with a functioning system.