[SOLVED] Installing Mageia Cauldron in a virtual machine

[epp]

After much trial, error and a comment I found in an older bug report, I finally managed to get networking running in virtual machines (vm) created by virt-manager.

I would like to try Mageia Cauldron in a vm, but have had no success in installing it. Since the Cauldron install image is a netinstall, is that type not able to be installed in a vm, or if it can be, is there a certain way to install it via the prompts? I only get as far as the (non-graphical, even though I selected "linux" for a graphical install) "Please choose the install method" and it fails there because it can'f find anything, regardless of what's selected, the ISO is on the CD as well as the host hard drive. If I select CDROM drive: "Error: no module list found!", Hard Disk" "No partition found." Also get "That CDROM disc does not seem to be a Mageia Installation CDROM. Retry with another disc?"

The attached image shows where it fails. The file it's looking for, is clearly in the specified directory. It apparently enabled networking before this (via DHCP) as there was no indication anywhere that networking failed. If this type of image/distro can't be installed in a vm,. please advise.

Thanks in advance.

[sturmvogel]

The recommended way to installl cauldron is described here: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Cauldron

That means, do a minimal Mageia 8 install in your VM and update it to a cauldron installation via the described way in the wiki article above.

ATM we have a bug with a non-working cauldron netinstall medium (as you have seen yourself). See bug https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30535

Additional here a wiki how to use a netinstall image: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_Netinstall_Iso_(Boot.iso)

[epp]

I am not able to install it because it is telling me that only 3.6Gb of space is available in the default area and that is not enough space to install it (total HDD size is 500Gb). I have four others installed, each using 25Gb. Although I was able to actually select a larger space size than 3.6, the (classic) installer crashed both times I tried.

Thank you for posting the information.

[sturmvogel]

Although I was able to actually select a larger space size than 3.6, the (classic) installer crashed both times I tried.

3,6 GB are way to less space to do a proper cauldron setup. I suggest at least a minimum of 20GB as you will try many applications if you really intend to use/test cauldron seriously. Dynamically increasing box is the best solution.

What was the error message when the installation crashed?

[epp]

Although I was able to actually select a larger space size than 3.6, the (classic) installer crashed both times I tried.

3,6 GB are way to less space to do a proper cauldron setup. I suggest at least a minimum of 20GB as you will try many applications if you really intend to use/test cauldron seriously. Dynamically increasing box is the best solution.

What was the error message when the installation crashed?

There weren't any. As it was installing updated packages after the base (?) install, it hung on installing grub2 the first time, the screen just sat there for 10 minutes without doing anything else and there was no further HDD activity. On the second attempt, it hung on installing Firefox (upgrading to an old version too: 91.3?) and I waited 15 minutes. I know it takes no where near that amount of time to upgrade a package. I set the size at 25Gb on the second attempt, but I guess it only created 3.6Gb instead, perhaps causing the crashes by running out of space?

When it first ran, I selected to install other desktop environments as I wanted to install LXQt, but during both attempts, it never reached that point.

I am using virt-manager for these and found no setting in the GUI to increase the overall size of the "default" area for vm's.

[sturmvogel]

Screenshot_20220630_223153.png (74.25 KiB) Viewed 3822 times

[epp]

The text under that prompt here, tells me there's (now) 3.2 Gb of space available. There otherwise isn't a setting to allocate a larger overall space on the hard drive to accomodate additional vm's.

[sturmvogel]

As the virtual machines are created under your / directory, you don't have space on your root partition left to install more vm's (you wrote that you already have 4 other vm's installed). Thats the reason why your installation fails. You should move or delete some of these vm's as you will bork your host when you don't have space on your hardrive left for a host update.

To install your vm's under an other path as the standard one (root directory) you have to chose "select or create custom storage" after you have created a custom storage path:

Screenshot_20220630_230742.png (54.42 KiB) Viewed 3820 times

[epp]

Had to delete one of the others due to not being able to install the printer, errors in .py files and issues with Chrome security keys at the repository.

In deleting that, it provided some additional space (although not the full 25 Gb), so I tried again with the classic installer.

Again, despite checking the box for other graphical desktops, it still did not prompt me to select any beyond that. When the installer finished, it booted into some primitive graphical desktop, then I went into the MCC to install LXQt, however on the next login, there was no option to select that as the desktop environment, it brought me back into that same primitive desktop. The login/desktop manager only asked for username and password, no other options.

It really was useless at that point, so I deleted it.

After three attempts, I really don't want to try it again.

[epp]

Made one final attempt. Checked the box to install LXDE, hoping it would install a usable desktop manager (it did). Installed LXQt once it was fully installed and upgraded. Then proceeded to upgrade it to Cauldron per the instruction link @sturmvogel provided above and everything went well, no errors or problems and it is running fine using 10 Gb of HDD space. virt-manager does not have an option to dynamically increase the space (that I know of), because that would have solved the space issue.

It wasn't t my preferred method of creating it, but achieved the end result I wanted.

Marking the thread solved. Thank you sturmvogel for the above information. It's very much appreciated.

I would suggest someone look at the Classic installer. As I had checked the box for Other desktop environments, the installer should have eventually asked for which one and it did not, installing that primitive graphical desktop instead.

[morgano]

As I had checked the box for Other desktop environments, the installer should have eventually asked for which one and it did not, installing that primitive graphical desktop instead.[/i]

You have to choose which you want. If not it only installs that falback (which it always do by default anyway)

[Bequimao]

Unfortunately I have seen this thread to late.

Which network selection did you choose at the beginning?

Do not install to your root device. Install to a different partition and set a symlink to /var/lib/libvirt. If your disk is to small, you can also add a second disk /dev/vdb to your VM.

Best regards
Bequimão

[sturmvogel]

Do not install to your root device. Install to a different partition and set a symlink to /var/lib/libvirt. If your disk is to small, you can also add a second disk /dev/vdb to your VM.

That was already mentioned by me. The standard from virt-manager is to install the vm's to the root directory ( /var/lib/libvirt). There is no symbolic link needed as you can see in my previous screenshot: you only need to create a custom storage path for the vm's as example /home/you/virt

[epp]

I found instructions at https://ostechnix.com/how-to-change-kvm ... -location/, changing the default storage location, then moved the existing vm's to the new area in my /home directory.

However when I tried to open one, virt-manager kept pointing to the root directory for the images. So I moved them all back, then cloned each one, but saving the clone in my /home directory. All of the clones work, the new default storage remains the new path in /home and I have deleted the originals.

I now have ~350 Gb to play with.

And as for the Cauldron image...I expanded its size from 10 to 55 Gb.