[opensuse] Installing 10.1 from CDs oddities
Hi all, I'm throwing this out first to see if others have experienced the same thing, before I report it to bugzilla. When everyone first started to complain about 10.1 and the few problems it seemed to have, updater, missing proprietary kernel modules, etc., I suspected it was only the usual whining that came about from a new release with some changes. I think I may have to join the group though, if the latest experience I have had is the normal behavior. Let me try to explain. While trying to install 10.1 from the 6 CDs on a pretty ordinary machine where all other SUSE installs have been no problem, things did not go well. I've spent about one & half days now trying to get 10.1, boxed, to install. First problem I ran into was the software installation getting to the 3rd or 4th disc and yast reporting that it could not find the file on this disc. Nothing unusual, right? Retry, abort, ignore. I asked it to retry and immediately it dropped out of yast to continue booting to the login screen. Of course, it's very difficult to login if there are no users or passwords established. Tried several things without success. Restarted the install process with another set of 10.1 discs, thinking something wrong with first set. During the second install, at the installation, update or other screen, I made the mistake of selecting the add source for other addons (not exact wording). I think someone else may have mentioned this problem/bug and it would seem to be a problem. Thinking I needed to add disc 6 with this, I proceeded. Tried to add, it couldn't find a catalog, so went back a step without selecting anything. Suddenly the machine seemed to be maxed out on the cpu. Slow response on everything, machine mostly unusable! Tried getting the disc out of the drive, but couldn't, it was locked. Again, I restarted the installation. Ok, third time I have everything figured out and should work. Wrong! Again, died at 4th disc with couldn't find file. Abort, retry, Ignore. Ignore this time and here it goes, booting to login screen. Again, tried several things in an attempt to have it continue, but no luck. Ok, so something is wrong with the discs, the brand, the burn, something or the ISO it was made from. I start a fourth time, with a new set of burned CDs only to get to the 4th disc to not find the file again. Same thing, boot to login screen. I do the old ctrl-alt-del key sequence for a reboot, but before I could change the disc to CD 1, it starts the process, but goes back to the installation screen asking for disc 4! Installation proceeds from there without further problems. Frustration had already started to settle in, let me assure you and the 10.0 discs were ready and waiting for their problem free turn! I've never had an install take as long as this nor so many problems on hardware that is very Linux friendly. Installing from the DVD on my main machine was a breeze and problem free, except for the terrible mono updater and other things everyone else has mentioned. Overall, 10.1 just has not felt right, not complete or something. I am sure neither I nor many other long time SUSE users were expecting this from such a seasoned Linux distro. As scsijon mentioned in his mail, I also will not recommend my customers to upgrade to 10.1, as 10.0, by far, felt more finished & stable. I would like to know if other CD users have experienced such problems and should it be reported to bugzilla? TIA, Lee --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
Hi BandiPat, this report is a very verbose duplicate of bug 173291: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=173291 Reporting it here on this mailing list doesn't make anything better. Don't get me wrong, it's an extremely annoying and bad bug and I expericenced it myself - it almost prevented me from installing 10.1 at all - but it is known and fixed. Unfortunately it was discovered too late for 10.1, that's why you are experiencing these problems. Just in case you are still interested in installing 10.1, you can try it this way: - Install a minimal graphical system without KDE and GNOME. Just the minimal preselection. Do not select any additional packages. - The installation will probably finish successfully, because the probability that a package cannot be read and crashes YaST is lower this way, because the number of packages to be installed is smaller. - After finishing the minimal installation, log in to FVWM2 and install KDE or GNOME from there. If you wonder what happens: There is a bug in the user interface code of YaST that makes YaST crash each time it shows the dialog you described above: Retry, Abort, Ignore => Crash. It's not unusual that a package cannot be read from the CDs, I had that in every previous installation of SUSE Linux and it was never a problem, but this time it makes YaST crash - bad, but not fixable after the release. Good luck if you want to try this workaround, and I hope it helps a little bit, Andreas Hanke --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 01 June 2006 15:03, Andreas Hanke wrote:
Hi BandiPat,
this report is a very verbose duplicate of bug 173291:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=173291
Reporting it here on this mailing list doesn't make anything better. Don't get me wrong, it's an extremely annoying and bad bug and I expericenced it myself - it almost prevented me from installing 10.1 at all - but it is known and fixed. Unfortunately it was discovered too late for 10.1, that's why you are experiencing these problems.
Just in case you are still interested in installing 10.1, you can try it this way: [...] Good luck if you want to try this workaround, and I hope it helps a little bit,
Andreas Hanke
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Thanks Andreas, I did managed to get it installed, as I mentioned in my original email, but not without a bit of frustration and disappointment in 10.1. You say there is a fix, but how is that going to help a new user I've passed a copy of 10.1 on CD too? When will the fix be released? Will it be a security/bug update or? As many have mentioned already, these things don't do much for the integrity of SUSE as a seasoned Linux product and unless they sent us all a new copy of the "fixed" CDs and DVD, it serves very little purpose to new installers trying to install SUSE. Bottom line is that somebody dropped the ball. This is not a good release for SUSE. Would have been better for them to listen to the yells about when it will come out then release such poor stuff too early. regards, Lee --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
Hi, BandiPat schrieb:
I did managed to get it installed, as I mentioned in my original email, but not without a bit of frustration and disappointment in 10.1. You say there is a fix, but how is that going to help a new user I've passed a copy of 10.1 on CD too? When will the fix be released? Will it be a security/bug update or?
Yes, it is already part of a set of updates which can be tested by the general public at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/aj/10.1-packagemanagement-update-test/ and will be released to all users as YOU in the near future, so the crash will no longer happen in installed systems. But: It doesn't help those people who are experiencing this crash during the installation because the CDs are already mastered. Feedback, including disappointment, is of course OK, but it doesn't really help now - the problem cannot be fixed any more. Actually there is a way to fix such problems for released products - a driver update - but "someone" from the community would have to convince "someone" at SUSE that it's severe enough to be worth a driver update, this will not be easy...
As many have mentioned already, these things don't do much for the integrity of SUSE as a seasoned Linux product and unless they sent us all a new copy of the "fixed" CDs and DVD, it serves very little purpose to new installers trying to install SUSE.
I doubt that fixed CDs and DVDs will be sent to customers. If there will be a fix, it would have to be a driver update. This is a cdrom or floppy image that can be used to update the installation system right during the installation. But, as already mentioned, I'm not aware of any plans to create such a driver update - it's just an idea of a solution that would theoretically work. With some technical knowledge of how these driver updates work, even someone from the community could create it, but unfortunately I don't have this knowledge and I don't know where to look for documentation. It might be worth asking.
Would have been better for them to listen to the yells about when it will come out then release such poor stuff too early.
Well, the problem with this crash during installation (#173291) is actually exactly one bug, I wouldn't call a product poor stuff because of one bug. But of course you're right, a bug that almost prevents installation is definitely a valid reason for being disappointed. This bug you were experiencing during installation (#173291) is a classical example of "bad luck": - It was detected very, very late - The original, initial report referred to a less critical situation that could be worked around, so it was decided to fix the problem after the release via YOU instead of delaying the release even more for everyone - The bug was therefore underestimated About "would have been better": It's difficult to say that. While there are many duplicate reports of this problem in Bugzilla, there are probably even more people out there who didn't experience crashes during the installation. And, there are many people giving feedback that the 10.1 release is disappointing, but there were also countless complaints before the release about the delays being unacceptable. What I'm trying to explain is that decisions about priorities had to be made, that some decisions of this kind are difficult enough to be always wrong and that legitimate feedback cannot undo problems that are technically not fixable after the release has beed made. There is a reference to a driver update in the original report, but I don't know if it's "officially" considered. I think the report is kept open because of the upcoming YOU. Andreas Hanke --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 01 June 2006 18:05, Andreas Hanke wrote:
Hi,
BandiPat schrieb:
I did managed to get it installed, as I mentioned in my original email, but not without a bit of frustration and disappointment in 10.1. You say there is a fix, but how is that going to help a new user I've passed a copy of 10.1 on CD too? When will the fix be released? Will it be a security/bug update or?
Yes, it is already part of a set of updates which can be tested by the general public at
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/aj/10.1-packagemanagement-update-test/
and will be released to all users as YOU in the near future, so the crash will no longer happen in installed systems.
But: It doesn't help those people who are experiencing this crash during the installation because the CDs are already mastered. Feedback, including disappointment, is of course OK, but it doesn't really help now - the problem cannot be fixed any more.
Actually there is a way to fix such problems for released products - a driver update - but "someone" from the community would have to convince "someone" at SUSE that it's severe enough to be worth a driver update, this will not be easy... [...] Andreas Hanke
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How about then if SUSE posted an ISO of the CD in the pack for us to download with the fixes? That particular CD image could be used to replace the bad one released! regards, Lee --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org
On Thu, Jun 01, 2006 at 06:30:19PM -0400, BandiPat wrote:
How about then if SUSE posted an ISO of the CD in the pack for us to download with the fixes? That particular CD image could be used to replace the bad one released!
If, then a diff -- houghi http://houghi.org http://www.plainfaqs.org/linux/ http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
Today I went outside. My pupils have never been tinier...
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