My install problem

dunbar · 2002-08-18 13:01:12

My System is:
DFI AK75EC mobo,
Athlon CPU,
256m PC133,
Geforce 2 MX200 based PNY Video (PCI, 32M)
/dev/hda = Ext2 Maxtor 15G as complete filesystem plus 524m swap,
/dev/hdb = Ext3 Maxtor 5G as /home/lee/music,
/dev/cdrom = 40x12x48 CDRW (I/O Magic, 1 month old) as boot drive,
/dev/cdrom1 = 2x2x6 CDRW (Philips, c1998) also tried as boot drive.

Boot from either CDRW drive:
Boot from Arch 0.3 CD;
Get welcome screen, click OK;
Next screen says: 'Abort Installation?' (I say: what?);
I wanted to see any error messages (use alt console per welcome message), but neither
alt-function keyn
nor
control-alt-function keyn
will get me a console (n = 1-12).

I repeated the boot a second time, and as I clicked the welcome screens OK button, I was looking at the bottom of the CRT, where a quick line of text flashed before the abort message came up. That line of text reads:
./setup: line 549: /tmp/.setup: read-only filesystem.
Feeling defeated, I tried booting the same CD in the second CDRW, no different, same error message.

Burned the CD via W98SE/DirectCD, the MD5 sums matched prior to burn. The arch0.3 ISO is on that machine and cannot transfer easily to any Linux box for any mounting of the ISO (If necessary, I can burn the ISO file onto a CDR and mount that CDR on a Linux box, copy the ISO to /dev/hda and mount that after verifying MD5s).

Possibly relevant: Mandrake 8.2 cannot properly install on this system since I replaced a defective CDROM with the 40x12x48.... yet 8.2 installed fine prior to the change to CDRW.

BTW, after booting, I searched /bin, and /sbin for either mc or lynx, can't find them - what package on the Arch 0.3 CD provides HTML reading capability, so I can read archdoc.html?

Finally, also of interest, after aborting installation, I cd /sbin, issue ./arp --help, I get this message:

'attempt to access beyond end of device 16:00, RW=0, want 553374, limit=466480'

Not that I know what arp provides, was hoping for an HTML reader and was about to blindly try each package

apeiro · 2002-08-18 17:56:05

/tmp not writeable.. ewww....

When the arch cd is booted up, run 'mount' and see if you have an entry for /tmp. It should say something like tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw). This is done by /etc/rc.sysinit with the line /bin/mount -n -t tmpfs tmpfs /tmp &> /dev/null.

Did you see any errors during bootup that could've been related to this?

btw, the html reader on there is w3m. Yea, I know it's not documented anywhere on the CD, it's one of those things I'll get to right after all the other things.

MeesterExx · 2002-08-19 01:07:11

Mandrake 8.2 cannot properly install on this system since I replaced a defective CDROM with the 40x12x48.... yet 8.2 installed fine prior to the change to CDRW.

I see that you tried the philips as boot drive but was the 40x still connected when you did? I have had a couple of cd-roms (i work in a computer shop) that caused errors on bootup under various versions on windows (though not on linux yet). I think the drives were causing errors on the ide bus even though they were not on the same channel as the hard drive.
Perhaps trying the philips as the only cd drive or testing with a different cd-rom would help.

dunbar · 2002-08-19 12:31:02

apeiro wrote:

/tmp not writeable.. ewww....
When the arch cd is booted up, run 'mount' and see if you have an entry for /tmp. It should say something like tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw). This is done by /etc/rc.sysinit with the line /bin/mount -n -t tmpfs tmpfs /tmp &> /dev/null.
[/b]

Ok, is this something which is hard coded into a file on the CDR, or dynamically generated, 'on-the-fly'?

Did you see any errors during bootup that could've been related to this?

No, but I didn't run dmesg either. :oops: Might have helped, eh? Some Linux guru I am.... (hangs head in shame).

btw, the html reader on there is w3m. Yea, I know it's not documented anywhere on the CD, it's one of those things I'll get to right after all the other things.

Roger!

dunbar · 2002-08-19 13:00:59

MeesterExx wrote:

Mandrake 8.2 cannot properly install on this system since I replaced a defective CDROM with the 40x12x48.... yet 8.2 installed fine prior to the change to CDRW.
I see that you tried the philips as boot drive but was the 40x still connected when you did?

Yes, through out all, /dev/hdc was CDRW 40x12x48, and also /dev/hdd was Philips2x2x6

I have had a couple of cd-roms (i work in a computer shop) that caused errors on bootup under various versions on windows (though not on linux yet).

I'll assume you mean CDROM 'drives'. FWIW, I replaced my 48X CDROM drive with the 40x12x48 because of being in an entirely opposite condition: failing only under Linux, flawless under Windows98SE!! I had 3 atapi resets whenever I tried accessing the 48X CDROM drive, happening for each and every boot, then all was fine till the next reboot..... never figured out why it ran fine after the resets.

I think the drives were causing errors on the ide bus even though they were not on the same channel as the hard drive.
Perhaps trying the philips as the only cd drive or testing with a different cd-rom would help.

I'll play with that concept next (before trying apeiros' ideas). I will try both 2x2x6 alone and 40x12x48 alone, both will be alone and configured as master on the second IDE channel.
Finally, the above drive setup can both boot and install both RedHat 7.1 Seawolf and Debian 3.0, no errors. I would say that somebody, somewhere - somehow, knows how to trick this setup into working.
EDIT: fixed tags for italics.. stpuid fnigers got it out of order.

apeiro · 2002-08-19 17:54:39

dunbar wrote:

Ok, is this something which is hard coded into a file on the CDR, or dynamically generated, 'on-the-fly'?

It's hard-coded in /etc/rc.sysinit on the CD.

A lot of people seem to have problems with the el torito boot cd setup. Maybe isolinux would serve us better for the next release.

dunbar · 2002-08-20 00:15:54

Tried removing datacable from /dev/hdd (2x2x6 Philips CDRW).
Booted from Arch CD, cd /arch, ./setup. Answered Ok, got same abort message as posted in first message.

ran dmesg, the only errors are as follows, found at the very end of dmesg:
TCP: (nothing wrong)
NET4: (nothing wrong)
ds: (nothing wrong)
FAT: Bogus logical sector 0
FAT: Bogus logical sector 0 (yes, a repeat)
VFS: mounted root (iso9660 filesystem) readonly
mounted devfs on /dev
Freeing unused kernel memory: 260k freed
Attempt to access beyond end of drive
16:00: RW=0, want 554436, limit=466480
Attempt to access beyond end of drive (yes, a repeat)
16:00: RW=0, want 554436, limit=466480 (yes, a repeat)
That is all.

Then, per earlier post, I ran mount command, got this:
can't open /etc/mtab: no such file or directory.
I was in /arch, but same error when I'm in root.

Next I chased the missing /mtab:
cd /etc, ls -la shows mtab is redirected to /proc/mounts

so then I cd /proc, ls -la shows nothing but . and ..
For grins, I cd mounts, no such file or directory.

I guess the $64000 question would be 'Why no /procs/mounts'???

Thanks for the help!

apeiro · 2002-08-20 00:25:12

I would point the finger at the "Attempt to access beyond end of drive" errors. /proc should be mounted at bootup, just like /tmp should. You could manually mount it, but there will probably be more errors lurking behind something that serious.

# mount -t proc none /proc

dunbar · 2002-08-20 02:37:07

Is this suggesting I have a badly burned CDR?

EDIT: BTW: Debian and RedHat 7.1 have installed via the same initial CDRW configuration which is stumbling Arch, also Mandrake 8.2 fails to install. Mandrake also boots but the installer fails to find a directory on a certain SCSI drive, which is not the correct drive. I think the rumblings in Mandrake land are settling onto drives are assigned reversed, thus installer in memory launched from CDRW1 tries to access SCSI drive 2 as its source drive... something like that. I may be misunderstanding what was happening in Mandrake land, but it might be a clue here.

dunbar · 2002-08-21 11:44:35

I burned a second CDR, same exact problems. This burn was done through the same CDRW drive as I boot from, via X-CD Roast under RH 7.1... I can't install Arch, so the former distro remains!

This seems odd, that Debian 3.0r0 (harumph) and RedHat 7.1 get installed no problems, but Arch 0.3 and Mandrake 8.2 fail due to missing/mislocated/misconfigured directories. Why should a CDRW booted system confuse the issue of drive mounting as opposed to, say mounting a burned CDR in a compatible CDROM?
FWIW (you, the reader, probably already feel this way), a drive should, IMO, mount without errors no matter which distro, no matter whether the drive is a CDROM or CDRW (or DVD for that matter).

For grins, when I get back home, I'll try booting/installing Arch from a spare 50x CDROM reader, hope to post results later today.

apeiro · 2002-08-21 17:11:40

Okay.

Forgive me if you've already tried this, but some people have had success with the bootdisks. If you download boot.img from the images/ directory on one of the mirrors and write it to a disk, you can boot with the kernel from the disk and the filesystem from the CD. Just have the cd in your first cd-rom drive and type 'cd' at the lilo prompt when the disk boots.

Good luck.

dunbar · 2002-08-21 19:39:00

apeiro wrote:

Okay.
Forgive me if you've already tried this, but some people have had success with the bootdisks. If you download boot.img from the images/ directory on one of the mirrors and write it to a disk, you can boot with the kernel from the disk and the filesystem from the CD. Just have the cd in your first cd-rom drive and type 'cd' at the lilo prompt when the disk boots.
Good luck.

I repeat :oops: some linux guru I am.
Thanks for the (smacks head) reminder.

And you said first cd-rom drive...... maybe I could try the first hardware configuration - dual CDRWs?

dunbar · 2002-08-22 11:53:47

Surfed the Arch 0.3 CD, found boot.img, burned it to a floppy via dd (hold that a minute).

Left the floppy in its drive, ejected the CD, rebooted. I had to eject the CD: BIOS CD boot sequence choices are fixed at 'First try booting CD then boot Floppy', otherwise the BIOS provides no other CD boot method at all.

Floppy booted to LILO, I pressed enter, Arch booted, and...... exact same errors are repeated (reading beyond end of device seen in dmesg, and during /arch/setup, I still get the 'abort installation' message). Hardware config is hdd=40x12x48, hdc=nothing.

Will revisit the issue tomorrow, but will download the proper boot.img (from first sentence: I know the intended boot.img is on the FTP site, but didn't have time to ftp last night).

If that still wont install via CDRW, I'll pull the 2x2x6 and switch the drive assignments such that the 50x CDROM reader drive = slave as /hdd and the 40x12x48 is master at /hdc. That should allow booting via the 50x, and my problem will be resolved. The bootloader concern, however, will remain unresolved.

dunbar · 2002-08-26 12:34:51

Nope, FTP images are also no help for installing via CDRW.

So, I pulled out the 2x2x6, popped in a 50x CDROM reader, retried the 0.4 install CD in 50x, and that failed later in the install process (those errors are written down, but sorry, the paper is 45 miles away from me right now).

Ok, at that time, I decided I can't get Arch into the box right now.

Maybe later at 0.4; thanks for the help thus far.

apeiro · 2002-08-26 20:49:49

:oops: I guess the old El Torito/LILO combo isn't a match made in heaven.

You're not the only one having these problems, dunbar. I'm going to look at using a different bootcd method (http://syslinux.zytor.com/iso.php) for the next release, so stay tuned. Hopefully this one will treat you better.

dunbar · 2002-08-27 12:30:10

apeiro wrote:

El Torito/LILO combo isn't a match made in heaven.

FWIW, just in case this is still only my peculiar box :
Debian Woody 3.0r0, RedHat 7.1, Mandrake 8.1 all install fine through the 40x12x48 (I/O Magic) CDRW.
Arch 0.3, Mandrake 8.2 both fail through the same CDRW.

I mention this simply because you seem to know what to look for, you might be able to determine (or maybe you have already have determined) each of the other distros install methods (ElTorito or ISO or whatever). Maybe my system is not consistently failing for the ElTorito problem your posts suggests. Otherwise, there might be a simple option being passed by the successful installer scripts or maybe a different assumption in Archs' script (one that is stumbling my CDRW); I do not know what to look for, you seem to be much more knowledgeable.

No reply necessary; HTH.

dunbar · 2002-10-02 13:25:36

This link provided a solution which worked.

Arch Linux

#1 2002-08-18 13:01:12

My install problem

#2 2002-08-18 17:56:05

Re: My install problem

#3 2002-08-19 01:07:11

Re: My install problem

#4 2002-08-19 12:31:02

Re: My install problem

#5 2002-08-19 13:00:59

Re: My install problem

#6 2002-08-19 17:54:39

Re: My install problem

#7 2002-08-20 00:15:54

Re: My install problem

#8 2002-08-20 00:25:12

Re: My install problem

#9 2002-08-20 02:37:07

Re: My install problem

#10 2002-08-21 11:44:35

Re: My install problem

#11 2002-08-21 17:11:40

Re: My install problem

#12 2002-08-21 19:39:00

Re: My install problem

#13 2002-08-22 11:53:47

Re: My install problem

#14 2002-08-26 12:34:51

Re: My install problem

#15 2002-08-26 20:49:49

Re: My install problem

#16 2002-08-27 12:30:10

Re: My install problem

#17 2002-10-02 13:25:36

Re: My install problem

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