2009.02 ISO Release

tjtag · 2009-02-23 05:46:06

@Brain0,
You are correct, it is auto-detected, out of habit during setup I add that option, I was not aware the behavior changed.

Last edited by tjtag (2009-02-23 05:52:18)

R00KIE · 2009-02-23 22:02:25

Out of luck here, I have tried the core and ftp usb images of arch 64 and I cannot boot both
It stops somewhere after detecting the usb and when trying to mount the boot (?) partition complaining that it can't find sr0.
Then I'm presented with a prompt from ramfs (I think).
Is there any way I can mount any partition (on the usb or fixed sata drive) and save the output of dmesg there so I can help sort this out?

Edit:
Nevermind, it works fine. Only after posting I remembered that this notebook has a buggy bios that sometimes doesn't boot properly from usb after a restart (but always works after a cold boot).
Still the last question remains.

Last edited by R00KIE (2009-02-23 22:19:11)

cerbie · 2009-02-24 03:45:38

Setting the clock in the ISO is a bit broken (13916).
1) There is no option to go back to the menu once you choose to set the clock.
2) When selecting countries, and also individual zones, the lists are too long to display, and does not seem to have the capability to scroll back up (also, no way to just exit back to setup). So, if it's not right there, the only option is to restart /arch/setup.

I also get errors when the setup attempts to mount partitions of my drives (/ and /home). I swear I've read others having the same problem, but don't see a bug report. Once I'm done (but, using 2008.06), I'll search for more on that.

Skripka · 2009-02-24 05:13:10

cerbie wrote:

Setting the clock in the ISO is a bit broken (13916).
1) There is no option to go back to the menu once you choose to set the clock.
2) When selecting countries, and also individual zones, the lists are too long to display, and does not seem to have the capability to scroll back up (also, no way to just exit back to setup). So, if it's not right there, the only option is to restart /arch/setup.
I also get errors when the setup attempts to mount partitions of my drives (/ and /home). I swear I've read others having the same problem, but don't see a bug report. Once I'm done (but, using 2008.06), I'll search for more on that.

Yea, on my install on this box I was unable to mount my Ext3 partitions...I ended up just nuking and redoing the entire partition table, with Ext4 for /home-and moving data/docs back over from backups.

brain0 · 2009-02-24 20:58:15

R00KIE wrote:

Is there any way I can mount any partition (on the usb or fixed sata drive) and save the output of dmesg there so I can help sort this out?

The emergency shell is a bit rudimentary, but it has a "mount" command. You must specify the filesystem type though, so it would look like this:

mkdir /x; mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /x

(Maybe you would also need to modprobe ext3, but maybe that's automatic, I'm not sure) Don't forget to umount before you reboot.

fflarex · 2009-02-26 19:20:27

Gishten has been kind enough to host my metalink file for the 2009.02 release here, on his personal ftp server.

As I said before, it uses every mirror as well as the torrents, and contains all of the installation images.

Dieter@be · 2009-02-26 19:26:26

fflarex wrote:

Gishten has been kind enough to host my metalink file for the 2009.02 release here, on his personal ftp server.
As I said before, it uses every mirror as well as the torrents, and contains all of the installation images.

Note that our torrents are webseed enabled. So if your torrent client supports it, it can also download over BT and from the http mirrors at the same time.

chilebiker · 2009-02-26 23:39:37

Just installed the the latest release without problems. It seems that my system is faster with ext4 (root partition).

Leye · 2009-03-02 09:50:03

R00KIE wrote:

Out of luck here, I have tried the core and ftp usb images of arch 64 and I cannot boot both
It stops somewhere after detecting the usb and when trying to mount the boot (?) partition complaining that it can't find sr0.
Then I'm presented with a prompt from ramfs (I think).
Is there any way I can mount any partition (on the usb or fixed sata drive) and save the output of dmesg there so I can help sort this out?
Edit:
Nevermind, it works fine. Only after posting I remembered that this notebook has a buggy bios that sometimes doesn't boot properly from usb after a restart (but always works after a cold boot).
Still the last question remains.

Unfortunately, I'm getting the same error, and I have no idea what I could do. I've tried all the new 2009.02-ISOs but none of them work for me. I use an external CD-drive (my notebook doesn't have one) by the way. It boots until it looks for the root device (I think), complaining that a particular driver (sr or something like that) is outdated. After that, it says the root device cannot be found.

The archboot-ISO (2008.12) works fine for me, and the old 2008.03 also. I wonder what the differences between those images are. Does anyone have an idea what I could do to boot into the installation environment? I'm not sure how I should use brain0's advise. For what do I have to substitute /x at mkdir?

R00KIE · 2009-03-02 12:11:45

Well ... what I asked will not solve your problem, I asked how to mount a fixed disk or flash drive so I could save the output of dmesg so if needed I could try to figure out what was wrong (read all the messages not just the last lines) or post the error online so I could get help. In my case its just a flaky bios >_<. I was dumping the usb image to my flash drive and rebooting and that was the problem for me (it works just fine from a cold boot).
In your case if you can, give the usb image a go and boot from a flash drive. I guess there must be a way to get the install image to the internal hard disk and boot from there, that would be a great way to have a recovery partition

twanj · 2009-03-13 05:36:37

fflarex wrote:

Gishten has been kind enough to host my metalink file for the 2009.02 release here, on his personal ftp server.
As I said before, it uses every mirror as well as the torrents, and contains all of the installation images.

thanks fflarex. it's up on http://www.metalinker.org/samples.html#arch now

drewlander · 2009-03-16 12:50:04

Had no problems using the installer. Very nice job.

yvonney · 2009-03-17 06:47:18

been having the GREATEST time with my install on the internal laptop drive and two other PCs. So, this evening I wanted to install to an external hard drive. I love a good nightmare....actually. Learning tons.... though the ramfs output .... 'cannot find filesystem' etc etc is still haunting me. funny as it does get a fair ways into the boot

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=67728

been all over google and founds lots.... no solutions yet..... gonna try the old 2008.06 iso....
I've tried this external usb drive on two PCs now.

i might guess it's kernel related.

UPDATE: nope, same thing with 2008.06 iso

Last edited by yvonney (2009-03-17 07:00:33)

Leye · 2009-03-21 17:17:28

No luck with the isolinux-iso.

Is there any way to get into the installation environemnt through that fallback "ramfs" prompt that I get after the boot doesn't continue?

Still got to try the img for USB devices, but I prefer using disks. I remember though, that using the 2008.06-imgs didn't work.

I think I have the same problem as yvonney's, and I cannot use the 2008.06-iso also. Perhaps it's because I have to use an external drive? The unofficial archboot-ISO works perfectly, the ancient official 2008.03, too, but I wonder if I will be able to get the newest ones to work.

MrShlee · 2009-04-07 05:15:43

I have no problems with the installer and I'm currently drafting an installation guide for laptops

Is there a roadmap for releases? Any plan for AIF and the next release?

Dieter@be · 2009-04-07 07:16:33

MrShlee wrote:

I have no problems with the installer and I'm currently drafting an installation guide for laptops
Is there a roadmap for releases? Any plan for AIF and the next release?

The plan is to do a new release each time there is a new kernel.
We're working on a new release with 2.6.29. Here is our roadmap. http://bugs.archlinux.org/roadmap/proj6

aif will be the installer on the next release.

sonoran · 2009-04-07 09:42:08

Greetings to one and all--

I understand why one might want to have a copy of the new "release," but given Arch's rolling release system,
why would anyone replace an existing Arch installation with it?

Is there anything in the new release, other than the installer, that is not in an up-to-date installation?

Quoting from the Sticky Post "The Arch Rolling Release System":

"I stress this point, there is nothing special about the set of packages on an installer CD, it's no more stable
than current is, because it's just a snapshot of it at a fairly arbitrary point in time."

Obviously there is something basic here I don't understand.

Thanks in advance for enlightening me.

Netsu · 2009-04-07 09:57:06

I guess a new iso is made each time a new kernel comes out so that you don't have to download and update the kernel right after the install. So it's for the sake of comfort of arch installation (and even rolling release distros need to be installed first ).

Dieter@be · 2009-04-07 10:16:14

Netsu wrote:

I guess a new iso is made each time a new kernel comes out so that you don't have to download and update the kernel right after the install. So it's for the sake of comfort of arch installation (and even rolling release distros need to be installed first ).

The main reason we do it is to provide optimal hardware support on our latest media.
Though the lesser need of upgrading is an okay side-effect

Anonymo · 2009-04-07 17:39:30

Also the new ISO provided the ext4 by default.

Leye · 2009-04-14 09:45:41

Sorry that I always dig up this issue, I still cannot install Archlinux with the new 2009.02 release. As I've explained before, the installer fails to boot claiming that it cannot find root devices and so on ... All I get is a fallback prompt from which I reboot.

Recently, I've tried to use the USB images, but I fear that my notebook isn't suitable for booting from USB devices. If I plug in the USB drive and choose it to boot from, there's only a black screen and nothing happens.

Nor does the ISOLINUX iso work. The unofficial 2008.12 archboot image does however but when I tried to reinstall Archlinux from it, I got an error when selecting the packages to install. Instead the categories displayed, I get something like "Error", "Expected", "^", looks like a bug for me ...

This didn't happen before, perhaps it isn't the installer's fault, but the servers', though I've tried several ones with the same error.

I'll try to use the archboot iso again, but I'm so jealous of those who can use the official CDs.

Back in time, 2008.03 worked fine for me, I think something has changed with the 2008.06 release. My notebook might be something special because it doesn't have a CD drive, I have to use an external one instead. Perhaps this is the reason for my problems.

I've written down the last few lines that I get before rebooting, I hope this will give you a clue (I've added some breaks):

Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk

:: Scanning for boot device...
:: Scanning for cd drives...
:: Scanning for usb drives...

ERROR: cannot find boot device, cannot continue
Falling back to interactive prompt

ramfs$ sci 1:0:0:0: CD-ROM HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T20N WR02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0

Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
sr0: scsi-mmc drive: 24x/24x writer dvd-ram cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20

ramfs$ [Here's my prompt]

In the meantime, I've tried another Linux which gives me the same error but a little bit more verbose:

mount: No medium found

Unable to find a vaild root device/partition

Please append correct "root=" and "rootfstype=" boot options

I'm not sure to which root device I have to refer--the CD (sr0)? Or a partition on my hard drive, I usually use sda2 for my root partition while sda1 is Vista. I'll be very pleased if someone can explain to me how to go on.

Last edited by Leye (2009-04-14 13:24:54)

Arch Linux

#51 2009-02-23 05:46:06

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#52 2009-02-23 22:02:25

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#53 2009-02-24 03:45:38

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#54 2009-02-24 05:13:10

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#55 2009-02-24 20:58:15

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#56 2009-02-26 19:20:27

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#57 2009-02-26 19:26:26

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#58 2009-02-26 23:39:37

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#59 2009-03-02 09:50:03

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#60 2009-03-02 12:11:45

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#61 2009-03-13 05:36:37

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#62 2009-03-16 12:50:04

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#63 2009-03-17 06:47:18

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#64 2009-03-21 17:17:28

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#65 2009-04-07 05:15:43

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#66 2009-04-07 07:16:33

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#67 2009-04-07 09:42:08

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#68 2009-04-07 09:57:06

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#69 2009-04-07 10:16:14

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#70 2009-04-07 17:39:30

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

#71 2009-04-14 09:45:41

Re: 2009.02 ISO Release

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