/arch/setup doesn't actually install

fukawi2 · 2007-09-28 04:38:48

Hi all,

Recent ArchLinux convert from Linux Mint - love Mint, Love Arch even more

I've successfully installed Arch on my laptop (a Dell D610), but now I'm trying to install on my girlfriend's laptop (Toshiba Satellite 2800) and it's not happy.

The CD boots, and I run the installer, partition the hard drive as below, select to install all packages then select "Install Packages". Everything goes through OK. When I come to "Configure System" though, I go through 'hwdetect' and answer 'No' to all the booting device options (usb, pcmcia etc). Select 'vim' as my editor, but when I go to edit all my files, they're all empty

If I go to a bash shell and cd to /mnt (which df reports is mounted successfully to /dev/sda3) and run 'ls' there isn't even an etc directory

All I have in /mnt is 'boot', 'home', 'lost+found', 'tmp' and 'var'

What's buggered up? We're going the whole hog on this laptop - only Arch, no dual-boot with Windows

My partition table:
/dev/sda1    /boot
/dev/sda2    <swap>
/dev/sda3    /
/dev/sda4    /home

EDIT: I can 'touch /mnt/test.txt' and it is created OK, so it doesn't seem like a permissions issue.

Last edited by fukawi2 (2007-09-28 05:15:15)

bangkok_manouel · 2007-09-28 10:49:26

Which iso are you using ?

Check this thread :
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 40#p281040

Last edited by bangkok_manouel (2007-09-28 10:49:52)

fukawi2 · 2007-09-29 04:21:56

I'm using the 2007.08.1 ISO (I think... I have 'top' as part of the CD)

I'm going to download and try the latest from here:
http://www.archlinux.org/~tpowa/rc-iso/686/

fukawi2 · 2007-10-01 08:53:23

I've tried with the latest base ISO as above but still no dice

Install goes through, but "Configure System" gives me empty files in /etc (Edit: that should be /mnt/etc)

Can anyone help me?

Last edited by fukawi2 (2007-10-01 08:54:03)

peart · 2007-10-01 15:12:37

Hello,

This might be a stupid explanation, but it would cause your problem. When in the "Prepare hard disk" part of the setup, you must choose DONE when you are finished selecting partitions. Then, you must choose "Return to main menu". After that, you should see a window clearly saying that setup is creating a file system on /dev/XXX#. If you just escape out of the menu, I'm pretty sure nothing will get created, hence the empty conf files.

HTH,
peart

tpowa · 2007-10-01 17:34:58

yes if you don't finish a menu it will not do anything

fukawi2 · 2007-10-01 21:28:23

Thanks for the feedback guys

I'm definitely doing that part - it takes 3 or 4 minutes to create the file systems and mount the partitions, then I get the message box saying "Partitions Mounted Successfully"

peart · 2007-10-02 00:09:03

If the install program says the partitions are successfully mounted, you'd really expect everything to work... This is really weird. The only other thing I find strange, is that you say that it takes several minutes to create your partitions. I just reinstalled last night, and it took all of 10 seconds to create 2 ReiserFS partitions.

Perhaps you are using another file system that takes much longer to create, or you are creating an insanely large number of partitions? I'm sorry, I'm out of ideas...

Perhaps checking dmesg during the installation would give you some clues.
Good luck,
peart

fukawi2 · 2007-10-02 01:46:57

Thanks peart - the laptop only has a 20gb hard drive so no massive partitions here, just the 4 listed in my original post I'm formatting them as ext3

I'm at work at the moment, and the laptop is at home. I'll have another shot when I get home, and check 'df' after it says the partitions are mounted to see if they actually have been mounted (I don't think they are). Then I'll have a look at 'dmesg' if they're not and post back.

fukawi2 · 2007-10-03 08:46:32

OK, I've re-run the setup, and TTY1 is sitting at the "Partitions were successfully mounted" prompt. TTY4 shows that the drives have been mounted according to 'df'.

The only interesting thing (I think) is that even though this is an IDE hard drive, it is detected as /dev/sda? All other distro's detect IDE drives as /dev/hda IIRC... Is this something in the latest kernel using SCSI emulation, or is something awry? I'll give it a try with ide-legacy...

<10 minutes later>

Nope, no dice - exactly the same outcome

Lone_Wolf · 2007-10-03 09:01:15

Arch switched default setting from ide to the new pata drivers a while back, i think it was around kernel 2.6.18 .
So default all hdd drives are now shown as sdxy .

I have no clue about the cause for your problem, but you could try to bypass the installer and use quickinst :
Using_the_quickinst_Script_to_Install_Arch_Linux

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2007-10-03 09:01:39)

fukawi2 · 2007-10-03 12:17:37

Thanks Lone_Wolf... This might be tacking down my problems...

After installation, "Verifying package integrity" reports that the shadow, perl and tar packages are corrupted... I also get an error while installing the kernel:
"sh: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

install-grub is missing too...

Sounds like a corrupt CD image? Strange that it would happen on 2 different CD's, burned from 2 different ISO's and one of them was used to install (successfully) to my laptop?

Thanks again for everyone's help

Last edited by fukawi2 (2007-10-03 12:18:19)

tpowa · 2007-10-03 20:18:28

how much RAM you have?
did you check md5sum of your ISO image?
is your media ok?

fukawi2 · 2007-10-03 23:26:01

128mb RAM, just did a quick check of the MD5's and they're both out (2007.08 and 2007.08.1) which is probably a big cause to my problem... Strange that I used the 2007.08 one to install successfully to my laptop though :S

I'm downloading ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/linux/archl … c.base.iso now, will check the MD5 when it's done and try again.

fukawi2 · 2007-10-04 01:11:23

Still no good... The MD5 verified, and I successfully installed to a desktop PC using the CD I created, but no joy for the girlfriend's laptop

tpowa · 2007-10-04 05:51:15

please, try the latest core iso mentioned above with lowmem as boot option it will work
128MB is too less memory to funtcion properly

tpowa · 2007-10-04 05:51:39

you can download i686 Isos here:
http://www.archlinux.org/~tpowa/rc-iso/686
you can download x86_64 Isos here:
http://www.archlinux.org/~tpowa/rc-iso/x86_64

fukawi2 · 2007-10-15 03:50:50

Quick update - girlfriend got impatient so I barfed and installed Xubuntu for her...

First time she'll have used Linux, so it's a start... If she goes well and wants to experiment then I'll try Arch again. In the mean time - I'm loving Arch on my laptop

Thanks again everyone for your help and input

Eviltelm · 2007-11-03 10:36:35

if she feels she wants to give it a try again, if u can find another laptop just like her's take her hdd and put it in the other laptop and try to install it there, if it works, put it again in her laptop and everthing should be alright

forever · 2007-11-11 01:19:33

use lowmem as boot option if your RAM is 128M

Calmatory · 2008-05-26 21:44:51

Sorry for a big bump, but I am having the excact same problem as Fukawi2. I am using 2007.8-2 release. Basically the problem is that every file Arch tries to access has /mnt/ infront of the path. Thus for example the config files are opened from /mnt/etc/* instead of /etc/*. This problem also makes the package installation impossible as well as setting root password.

More and more I have a belief that this is hardware issue. I am using 10 years old motherboard with Intel LX440 chipset, IDE CD-ROM drive and IDE HDD. At least *buntu distros seem to work flawlessly as does Puppylinux.

Any workarounds for this?

Last edited by Calmatory (2008-05-26 21:47:34)

czar · 2008-05-27 23:12:53

i believe that /mnt is infront of the path because the cd is your root. If you chroot /mnt then it would be /etc ...but i havn't installed in a while soOo.
Oo and i've had this problem before (i use usb stick instead of cd) and i would just recopy the iso to usb and it would work usually.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-09-28 04:38:48

/arch/setup doesn't actually install

#2 2007-09-28 10:49:26

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#3 2007-09-29 04:21:56

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#4 2007-10-01 08:53:23

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#5 2007-10-01 15:12:37

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#6 2007-10-01 17:34:58

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#7 2007-10-01 21:28:23

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#8 2007-10-02 00:09:03

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#9 2007-10-02 01:46:57

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#10 2007-10-03 08:46:32

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#11 2007-10-03 09:01:15

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#12 2007-10-03 12:17:37

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#13 2007-10-03 20:18:28

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#14 2007-10-03 23:26:01

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#15 2007-10-04 01:11:23

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#16 2007-10-04 05:51:15

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#17 2007-10-04 05:51:39

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#18 2007-10-15 03:50:50

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#19 2007-11-03 10:36:35

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#20 2007-11-11 01:19:33

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#21 2008-05-26 21:44:51

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

#22 2008-05-27 23:12:53

Re: /arch/setup doesn't actually install

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