TW Net Install - Repeated Failures, US Mirror timeouts, Text Mode Loops, etc - Running 6 hours later
All, Note on the Tumbleweed Net install ISO. Of the 20+ years I've used SUSE/openSUSE, this was by far the most frustrating and error prone install I have ever done. The US Mirrors and the magic "mirror selector" is unusable. My first 3 attempts at install ended in: Error 10 - Connection Closed with 96M left to download Connection Closed with 92M left to download Error 18 - Connection Closed with 116M left to download After selecting an individual mirror, download was limited to between 80-300Kbs. Downloading Installation System 1/6, 2/6, .... took over an hour to complete. Then a dialog was presented saying Install system matching repository must be downloaded, Download [Now] [Reboot], only to have to wait another hour as the same files were downloaded. After 2nd download completed, we were presented with Install with - GUI or Text Mode. Choosing GUI presented another dialog that the install system matching the selection would have to be downloaded throwing me back into the "Downloading Installation System 1/6, 2/6, .... " (really?) Tried a second individual mirror, same download rate 80-300Kbs (on an 300Mbs connection), same circular text mode prompts, (including being dropped out of the X-win gray screen to the console and the text prompts just showing in ther terminal) same result - never even had the installer load. Third individual mirror selection - this time connection speed was 6Mbs, Install system loaded in less than 4 minutes, Installation program finally launched and I was able to complete the install with a minimal X install in 40 minutes or so. Issues: Yast cannot configure network claiming Network Manager is managing the network -- but I have IceWM as the desktop and no Network Manager is shown or available. How do I tell yast to configure my network connections? /etc/pam.d/su - not present. I had to copy from 15.4 - why? Yast Software Repositories does not show any of the normal repositories, only Packman and libdvdcss. Where do I get the list of the normally available repos for TW? Good points: On launch of Software_Single, Yast correctly recognized the Nvidia card in the laptop and loaded the kernel source and built the driver without issue. Very nice. All in all, just getting the installer to run from this net install was the most painful exercise I've been though installing Linux. Now granted, this seems to be 99% related to the mirror-selector and the abysmal state of US mirrors. I don't know why this is, but I went through 4 individual mirrors, and 3 of 4 had no thoughput resulting in 1+ hours just to attempt to load the install system -- which would then fail. The fcix.net mirror was the only good mirror I found. In order to not get 1/2-way though only to be forced to re-download the matching install system from that mirror, I downloaded a copy of the iso from that mirror before starting the install. Otherwise, if you choose an individual mirror, the install will get 1/2 way to starting the install system only to say your media doesn't match the mirror and force you to download it in the middle of the install system load -- likely leading to the ultimate failure when just choosing an individual mirror. That should be seamless. If there is a tech requirement to download the iso from an individual mirror, then you should be notified of that as soon as you enter the url for the mirror, not an hour later after waiting for 1/6, 2/6, ... only to have to do it again. US mirrors need a bit of TLC, or the bad ones just need to be dropped. Having done this 20 times, I can muddle though, but someone just downloading the TW net install iso -- has no chance. Let me know if you want further info. I took a few pictures of my screen with my phone of the error dialogs. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
David C. Rankin composed on 2024-07-07 04:54 (UTC-0500):
Note on the Tumbleweed Net install ISO. Of the 20+ years I've used SUSE/openSUSE, this was by far the most frustrating and error prone install I have ever done.
North American mirrors are often flaky, especially if installing an alpha or beta, because most are not full service. When a NET installation takes an unreasonable time to get started, abort, and use a Euro mirror. I typically use ftp5.gwdg.de when this happens.
The US Mirrors and the magic "mirror selector" is unusable. My first 3 attempts at install ended in:
Attempting to install what?
Issues:
Yast cannot configure network claiming Network Manager is managing the network -- but I have IceWM as the desktop and no Network Manager is shown or available. How do I tell yast to configure my network connections?
I don't try. I use linuxrc to configure network for installation, select not managed for network, and include systemd-network among packages to install. YaST can't manage systemd-network, but that's fine by me. I use only static IPs, and have no problem writing /etc/systemd/network/eth0.network and /etc/resolv.conf files on first boot.
Yast Software Repositories does not show any of the normal repositories, only Packman and libdvdcss. Where do I get the list of the normally available repos for TW?
NVidia users trigger installation of openSUSE-repos-Leap and openSUSE-repos-Leap-NVIDIA, which sets up a repo management service. I taboo their installation, which results in traditional repo setup and management.
All in all, just getting the installer to run from this net install was the most painful exercise I've been though installing Linux. Now granted, this seems to be 99% related to the mirror-selector and the abysmal state of US mirrors. I don't know why this is, but I went through 4 individual mirrors, and 3 of 4 had no thoughput resulting in 1+ hours just to attempt to load the install system -- which would then fail. The fcix.net mirror was the only good mirror I found.
IME, cdn.o.o and mirrorcache.o.o in USA are too unreliable.
US mirrors need a bit of TLC, or the bad ones just need to be dropped.
True. I don't even bother downloading the NET .iso most times. On already working systems I simply have Grub load the installation linux and initrd I got from <http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/boot/x86_64/loader/>. When I see it take too long to get started by using d.o.o as source, I abort and start over using gwdg.de instead. -- Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion, based on faith, not based on science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata
On 7/7/24 06:18, Felix Miata wrote:
The US Mirrors and the magic "mirror selector" is unusable. My first 3 attempts at install ended in:
Attempting to install what?
Tumbleweed from: openSUSE-Tumbleweed-NET-x86_64-Current.iso When the boot media goes to the mirror to install the "Installation System" which is then what is run (the normal installer), the failures all prevented the "Installation System" from every completely downloading, or downloading in a way that the installer thought was consistent. The number of different ways the Red: "An error occurred during installation." dialogs that I saw was nuts. Even when ALL of the 1/6, 2/6, 3/6, ... parts of the installation system downloaded properly, the red "An error occurred during installation." dialog would be shown, and it would then show you the dialog to start the installation system. Only the last mirror actually succeeded to launch the install after this error. All other mirrors resulted in redownload of the installation system, more errors and more loops back to download before hanging or just failing.
Issues:
Yast cannot configure network claiming Network Manager is managing the network -- but I have IceWM as the desktop and no Network Manager is shown or available. How do I tell yast to configure my network connections?
I don't try. I use linuxrc to configure network for installation, select not managed for network, and include systemd-network among packages to install. YaST can't manage systemd-network, but that's fine by me. I use only static IPs, and have no problem writing /etc/systemd/network/eth0.network and /etc/resolv.conf files on first boot.
Where does the flag for this behavior live? /etc/sysconfig? I don't have Network Manager, but Yast says my network is managed and I have no way to configure the wireless? I simply want to configure my wifi and eth0 connections in yast onboot.
Yast Software Repositories does not show any of the normal repositories, only Packman and libdvdcss. Where do I get the list of the normally available repos for TW?
NVidia users trigger installation of openSUSE-repos-Leap and openSUSE-repos-Leap-NVIDIA, which sets up a repo management service. I taboo their installation, which results in traditional repo setup and management.
UUGH.... How do I undo this "repo management service" now that I just did the TW install to get normal repos back? Is it a meta-package or something I need to uninstall?
US mirrors need a bit of TLC, or the bad ones just need to be dropped.
True. I don't even bother downloading the NET .iso most times. On already working systems I simply have Grub load the installation linux and initrd I got from <http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/boot/x86_64/loader/>. When I see it take too long to get started by using d.o.o as source, I abort and start over using gwdg.de instead.
That's a shame. I've used the Net install since it came out somewhere around the 10.X days, maybe 11. I had never had any problem at all with it. However, in the past I never experienced a 1+ hour wait for it to try and download the install system. To be honest, I thought that was on the USB already, so it wasn't until the initial downloads kept failing that I clued into the fact that the Net-install is now basically nothing more than a hardware detect and kernel setup to establish a network connection to download the actual installer and then start the install. Watching each square of the meter take several minutes per progress-tick was quite painful. Let me know if you know how I fix the Yast network and Yast repo management problems. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
David C. Rankin composed on 2024-07-07 12:59 (UTC-0500):
Felix Miata wrote:
Attempting to install what?
Tumbleweed from:
openSUSE-Tumbleweed-NET-x86_64-Current.iso
When the boot media goes to the mirror to install the "Installation System" which is then what is run (the normal installer), the failures all prevented the "Installation System" from every completely downloading, or downloading in a way that the installer thought was consistent.
The TW installer now checks for a newer installation system than that on the booted media, and downloads and starts it instead, if newer exists. I think the 15.6 installer also does this.
The number of different ways the Red:
"An error occurred during installation."
dialogs that I saw was nuts. Even when ALL of the 1/6, 2/6, 3/6, ... parts of the installation system downloaded properly, the red "An error occurred during installation." dialog would be shown, and it would then show you the dialog to start the installation system.
I suspect what you experienced was inadequate competence from use of cdn.o.o, unable to provide a consistent set of files from fully sync'd mirrors.
I don't try. I use linuxrc to configure network for installation, select not managed for network, and include systemd-network among packages to install. YaST can't manage systemd-network, but that's fine by me. I use only static IPs, and have no problem writing /etc/systemd/network/eth0.network and /etc/resolv.conf files on first boot.
Where does the flag for this behavior live? /etc/sysconfig? I don't have Network Manager, but Yast says my network is managed and I have no way to configure the wireless? I simply want to configure my wifi and eth0 connections in yast onboot.
I don't believe there are existing plans to enable YaST control of network using systemd-network instead of NM or Wicked. To select DIY control with systemd-network is required to click the link on the Installation Summary page Network section that disables the current selection, leaving two links, one for enabling NM, and one for enabling Wicked. In this state, network configuration applicable to NET installation must have come from using linuxrc, and the systemd-network package must be selected for installation if on first boot you wish configuration of systemd-network to be enabled. This is not inherited by the installed system. Systemd-network must be manually configured upon booting the installed system. To enable systemd-network use: populate /etc/systemd/network with files to configure your NIC(s) systemctl enabled systemd-networkd.socket I don't use wireless so all I know about is ethernet with static IPs, and the above is all I've found necessary in most cases. In a limited few installations, all on Fedora IIRC, it has also been necessary to enable systemd-networkd.service.
NVidia users trigger installation of openSUSE-repos-Leap and openSUSE-repos-Leap-NVIDIA, which sets up a repo management service. I taboo their installation, which results in traditional repo setup and management.
UUGH.... How do I undo this "repo management service" now that I just did the TW install to get normal repos back? Is it a meta-package or something I need to uninstall?
Repo management service is enabled by openSUSE-repos-<ReleaseName>. openSUSE-repos-NVIDIA tags along if such hardware is detected. Uninstalling them removes the service. Left unlocked, it/they will reappear, unless NVidia hardware is first removed. Whether uninstalling openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed will populate /etc/zypp/repos.d/ I have no idea. My server provides all the repo files I use for the purpose.
US mirrors need a bit of TLC, or the bad ones just need to be dropped.
I've used the Net install since it came out somewhere around the 10.X days, maybe 11.
It was in place at least by 8.0, which was my first exposure to SuSE, and was my only installation type used at least through 9.3.
Let me know if you know how I fix the Yast network and Yast repo management problems.
I haven't tried YaST Network or Repositories in years. Repos for new installations are simply copied from my LAN server as required. Those named repo-whatever.repo are all discarded in favor of file and repo names lacking redundance, although alias names are each twin to repo name. -- Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion, based on faith, not based on science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata
On 7/7/24 13:50, Felix Miata wrote:
The TW installer now checks for a newer installation system than that on the booted media, and downloads and starts it instead, if newer exists. I think the 15.6 installer also does this.
This has DIRE unintended consequences where a slow mirror is auto-selected for the user. The downloading system installer 1/6, 2/6, ... takes 1+ HOURS and there is no way to politely cancel it. It only responds to SIGKILL triggering a reboot - back to square one. Ctrl+C or 'q' or ESC has no effect. So if a bad mirror is obtained, the poor user is stuck unless he triggers SIGKILL by issuing Ctrl+Alt+Del. That doesn't seem like desired behavior from the NET-install program.
I don't believe there are existing plans to enable YaST control of network using systemd-network instead of NM or Wicked. To select DIY control with systemd-network is required to click the link on the Installation Summary page Network section that disables the current selection, leaving two links, one for enabling NM, and one for enabling Wicked. In this state, network configuration applicable to NET installation must have come from using linuxrc, and the systemd-network package must be selected for installation if on first boot you wish configuration of systemd-network to be enabled. This is not inherited by the installed system. Systemd-network must be manually configured upon booting the installed system.
To enable systemd-network use:
populate /etc/systemd/network with files to configure your NIC(s) systemctl enabled systemd-networkd.socket
I don't use wireless so all I know about is ethernet with static IPs, and the above is all I've found necessary in most cases. In a limited few installations, all on Fedora IIRC, it has also been necessary to enable systemd-networkd.service.
I'm about to boot back into TW and try again. I have no browser, no e-mail, no wifi, no nothing so far (minimal X install) There are no tools installed to allow configuration of eth0 or wifi -- which is odd. I did fix "solver.onlyRequires = true" in zypp.conf so hopefully the system isn't too polluted at this point.
Repo management service is enabled by openSUSE-repos-<ReleaseName>. openSUSE-repos-NVIDIA tags along if such hardware is detected. Uninstalling them removes the service. Left unlocked, it/they will reappear, unless NVidia hardware is first removed. Whether uninstalling openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed will populate /etc/zypp/repos.d/ I have no idea. My server provides all the repo files I use for the purpose.
This is new to me. I didn't have any issues with 15.4 doing NET-install and minimal X. Yast kept working fine. I'll see if removing and locking openSUSE-repos-<ReleaseName> will help. I kinda like what openSUSE-repos-NVIDIA did.
I haven't tried YaST Network or Repositories in years. Repos for new installations are simply copied from my LAN server as required. Those named repo-whatever.repo are all discarded in favor of file and repo names lacking redundance, although alias names are each twin to repo name.
I generally copy a bunch over. I have the TW install mounted at /mnt/tw right now, but I was trying to keep the "fresh install" as fresh as possible. In TW, I can mount 15.4 as /mnt/154, so getting to the files isn't a problem. Sorting out where the new problem causing files on TW are that are preventing wifi config is the biggest chore. Will report back after I get back into 15.4 with a wifi connection. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
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