[opensuse] Need distro advice. Problems installing Leap.
I've used SuSE for well over 20 years, going back to either 3.x or 4.x, I don't remember which. It's been a really long time. I'm amazed how the product has grown by leaps and bounds regularly, and I update my own computers fairly often, if not every release. I also keep some friends systems up to date, as well as manage hardware on their systems, mostly because they don't understand how to help themselves, and they've payed, quite literally, thousands of dollars a year to have professionals remove more malware than I would ever have imagined that a system could acquire so quickly. Since installing Linux, the malware problems have gone away. The problem now is that I need to update some older systems. Because I don't charge for the help, I really don't want to spend hours upon hours trying to figure out what's going wrong with failed installs. Leap has presented me with numerous challenges, first at home, where I had to put the /home directory on on of the first two disks or the system refused to boot. It took me many days, and a LOT of hours to figure that out, but now it works fine. So, armed with that understanding, I took an install disk to a friends' house and installed Leap, creating the two directories on the only disk. After a lengthy load, the install hangs again after the reboot. I don't have s lot of time to figure this out, so I have a couple questions: Does Leap have known problems getting a working system up and running, especially apparently not being able to find the system after reboot? I've seen some of the Leap install problems posts here, but none seemed like my problems. Is there a more reliable, recent distro that I would be better advised to use? TIA, Jim Thus spake iPad. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Jim Sabatke wrote:
I've used SuSE for well over 20 years, going back to either 3.x or 4.x, I don't remember which.
4.4.1 was my first, 1996 I think.
The problem now is that I need to update some older systems. Because I don't charge for the help, I really don't want to spend hours upon hours trying to figure out what's going wrong with failed installs. Leap has presented me with numerous challenges, first at home, where I had to put the /home directory on on of the first two disks or the system refused to boot. It took me many days, and a LOT of hours to figure that out, but now it works fine. So, armed with that understanding, I took an install disk to a friends' house and installed Leap, creating the two directories on the only disk. After a lengthy load, the install hangs again after the reboot. I don't have s lot of time to figure this out, so I have a couple questions:
Does Leap have known problems getting a working system up and running, especially apparently not being able to find the system after reboot?
Generally speaking, no. With root on NFS, it doesn't work though.
I've seen some of the Leap install problems posts here, but none seemed like my problems.
Is there a more reliable, recent distro that I would be better advised to use?
It's difficult advise without more details of the circumstances, but if you're somehow having trouble with Leap + updates, and you don't wish to debug, I would revert to 13.2. /Per -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Thus spake iPad.
On Feb 7, 2016, at 1:34 PM, Per Jessen <per@computer.org> wrote:
Jim Sabatke wrote:
I've used SuSE for well over 20 years, going back to either 3.x or 4.x, I don't remember which.
4.4.1 was my first, 1996 I think.
The problem now is that I need to update some older systems. Because I don't charge for the help, I really don't want to spend hours upon hours trying to figure out what's going wrong with failed installs. Leap has presented me with numerous challenges, first at home, where I had to put the /home directory on on of the first two disks or the system refused to boot. It took me many days, and a LOT of hours to figure that out, but now it works fine. So, armed with that understanding, I took an install disk to a friends' house and installed Leap, creating the two directories on the only disk. After a lengthy load, the install hangs again after the reboot. I don't have s lot of time to figure this out, so I have a couple questions:
Does Leap have known problems getting a working system up and running, especially apparently not being able to find the system after reboot?
Generally speaking, no. With root on NFS, it doesn't work though.
OK, I've done two installs and both had almost the exact same problems, they wouldn't reboot after the install. I've really never had a problem installing a SuSE distro until Leap. The first was on my desktop, which has 4 SATA drives. I initially used the installer's recommended configuration, with / on sda and /home on sda. That refused to boot, with a blank screen on reboot, until I put /home on sda. Then it went perfectly. Then I tried to load Leap on a friend's laptop. He had only one drive, so I figured it would be easy. Same problem on reboot with a blank, unresponsive screen. I only mentioned how long I've been using SuSE to give you an idea how unusual and unexpected these problems were. I suspect I'll be forced to go back a version or two, but I worry about security upgrades in the future. So, if anyone can shed light on this, I'd be really grateful.
I've seen some of the Leap install problems posts here, but none seemed like my problems.
Is there a more reliable, recent distro that I would be better advised to use?
It's difficult advise without more details of the circumstances, but if you're somehow having trouble with Leap + updates, and you don't wish to debug, I would revert to 13.2.
/Per
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Jim Sabatke wrote:
OK, I've done two installs and both had almost the exact same problems, they wouldn't reboot after the install. I've really never had a problem installing a SuSE distro until Leap. The first was on my desktop, which has 4 SATA drives. I initially used the installer's recommended configuration, with / on sda and /home on sda. That refused to boot, with a blank screen on reboot, until I put /home on sda. Then it went perfectly.
That sounds totally odd. I think it's highly unlikely that this has actually to do with what's being mounted where. FWIW, I have two Leap systems - a test desktop, nvidia graphics, boots from software raid1. a server with very basic graphics, booting from iSCSI.
Then I tried to load Leap on a friend's laptop. He had only one drive, so I figured it would be easy. Same problem on reboot with a blank, unresponsive screen.
Sounds like a graphics issue, in both cases perhaps. You're an experienced user - did you try switching to a virtual console, Ctrl-Alt-F1 ? It's been a little while since I've dabbled with difficult graphics cards, my desktops are all fairly backlevel hardware-wise. Did you try using "nomodeset"?
I only mentioned how long I've been using SuSE to give you an idea how unusual and unexpected these problems were.
Okay.
I suspect I'll be forced to go back a version or two, but I worry about security upgrades in the future. So, if anyone can shed light on this, I'd be really grateful.
When a system produces a blank screen, it's always good to know if's responsive or not. For instance, do the numlock and capslock lights switch on and off when the keys are pressed? Can you switch to a virtual console? Can you ping the machine from elsewhere? How about ssh access from another machine? If the machine doesn't respond to any of this, how about Ctrl-Alt-Sysrq-B? -- Per Jessen, Zürich (2.4°C) http://www.hostsuisse.com/ - virtual servers, made in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Thus spake iPad.
On Feb 10, 2016, at 1:14 AM, Per Jessen <per@computer.org> wrote:
Jim Sabatke wrote:
OK, I've done two installs and both had almost the exact same problems, they wouldn't reboot after the install. I've really never had a problem installing a SuSE distro until Leap. The first was on my desktop, which has 4 SATA drives. I initially used the installer's recommended configuration, with / on sda and /home on sda. That refused to boot, with a blank screen on reboot, until I put /home on sda. Then it went perfectly.
That sounds totally odd. I think it's highly unlikely that this has actually to do with what's being mounted where.
FWIW, I have two Leap systems -
a test desktop, nvidia graphics, boots from software raid1. a server with very basic graphics, booting from iSCSI.
Then I tried to load Leap on a friend's laptop. He had only one drive, so I figured it would be easy. Same problem on reboot with a blank, unresponsive screen.
Sounds like a graphics issue, in both cases perhaps. You're an experienced user - did you try switching to a virtual console, Ctrl-Alt-F1 ? It's been a little while since I've dabbled with difficult graphics cards, my desktops are all fairly backlevel hardware-wise. Did you try using "nomodeset"?
First, thanks for the effort so far. I tried the virtual console, no luck. I have a GeForce 9800 GT sound card. Resolution is 1680x1050. I did not try nomodeset. I'm about ready to try the other guy's laptop as soon as he gets me some network info, so I'll try that if it happens again. The laptop has Windows 8.1, does that provide any challenges I may have missed? That hadn't occurred to me as it seemed to have the American problems as my old BIOS desktop. I just plain don't use Windows except for a couple of apps that don't run on Linux, which is probably made couple times a year.
I only mentioned how long I've been using SuSE to give you an idea how unusual and unexpected these problems were.
Okay.
I suspect I'll be forced to go back a version or two, but I worry about security upgrades in the future. So, if anyone can shed light on this, I'd be really grateful.
When a system produces a blank screen, it's always good to know if's responsive or not. For instance, do the numlock and capslock lights switch on and off when the keys are pressed? Can you switch to a virtual console? Can you ping the machine from elsewhere? How about ssh access from another machine? If the machine doesn't respond to any of this, how about Ctrl-Alt-Sysrq-B?
-- Per Jessen, Zürich (2.4°C) http://www.hostsuisse.com/ - virtual servers, made in Switzerland.
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
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Jim Sabatke wrote:
On Feb 10, 2016, at 1:14 AM, Per Jessen <per@computer.org> wrote:
Jim Sabatke wrote:
OK, I've done two installs and both had almost the exact same problems, they wouldn't reboot after the install. I've really never had a problem installing a SuSE distro until Leap. The first was on my desktop, which has 4 SATA drives. I initially used the installer's recommended configuration, with / on sda and /home on sda. That refused to boot, with a blank screen on reboot, until I put /home on sda. Then it went perfectly.
That sounds totally odd. I think it's highly unlikely that this has actually to do with what's being mounted where.
FWIW, I have two Leap systems -
a test desktop, nvidia graphics, boots from software raid1. a server with very basic graphics, booting from iSCSI.
Then I tried to load Leap on a friend's laptop. He had only one drive, so I figured it would be easy. Same problem on reboot with a blank, unresponsive screen.
Sounds like a graphics issue, in both cases perhaps. You're an experienced user - did you try switching to a virtual console, Ctrl-Alt-F1 ? It's been a little while since I've dabbled with difficult graphics cards, my desktops are all fairly backlevel hardware-wise. Did you try using "nomodeset"?
First, thanks for the effort so far.
I tried the virtual console, no luck. I have a GeForce 9800 GT sound card. Resolution is 1680x1050.
Sounds good except not being able to get to a virtual console is not so good. If you google that card, you'll see some problems with it - I wonder if blacklisting 'nouveau' might be worth trying. If you can access the system via ssh, try removing 'nouveau', otherwise you can blacklist it when you're booting: "BrokenModules=nouveau". Some reference material: https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_the_hard_way#openSUSE_Tumbleweed_and_Leap
I did not try nomodeset. I'm about ready to try the other guy's laptop as soon as he gets me some network info, so I'll try that if it happens again. The laptop has Windows 8.1, does that provide any challenges I may have missed?
I doubt it, but it's been years since I've dabbled in Windows. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (3.1°C) http://www.hostsuisse.com/ - virtual servers, made in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 02/10/2016 10:13 AM, Per Jessen wrote:
Jim Sabatke wrote:
On Feb 10, 2016, at 1:14 AM, Per Jessen <per@computer.org> wrote:
Jim Sabatke wrote:
OK, I've done two installs and both had almost the exact same problems, they wouldn't reboot after the install. I've really never had a problem installing a SuSE distro until Leap. The first was on my desktop, which has 4 SATA drives. I initially used the installer's recommended configuration, with / on sda and /home on sda. That refused to boot, with a blank screen on reboot, until I put /home on sda. Then it went perfectly.
That sounds totally odd. I think it's highly unlikely that this has actually to do with what's being mounted where.
FWIW, I have two Leap systems -
a test desktop, nvidia graphics, boots from software raid1. a server with very basic graphics, booting from iSCSI.
Then I tried to load Leap on a friend's laptop. He had only one drive, so I figured it would be easy. Same problem on reboot with a blank, unresponsive screen.
Sounds like a graphics issue, in both cases perhaps. You're an experienced user - did you try switching to a virtual console, Ctrl-Alt-F1 ? It's been a little while since I've dabbled with difficult graphics cards, my desktops are all fairly backlevel hardware-wise. Did you try using "nomodeset"?
First, thanks for the effort so far.
I tried the virtual console, no luck. I have a GeForce 9800 GT sound card. Resolution is 1680x1050.
Sounds good except not being able to get to a virtual console is not so good. If you google that card, you'll see some problems with it - I wonder if blacklisting 'nouveau' might be worth trying.
If you can access the system via ssh, try removing 'nouveau', otherwise you can blacklist it when you're booting: "BrokenModules=nouveau".
Some reference material: https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_the_hard_way#openSUSE_Tumbleweed_and_Leap
I did not try nomodeset. I'm about ready to try the other guy's laptop as soon as he gets me some network info, so I'll try that if it happens again. The laptop has Windows 8.1, does that provide any challenges I may have missed?
I doubt it, but it's been years since I've dabbled in Windows.
I had some problems too with Leap and Tumbleweed, also using the same video chip set. However, Per had asked you to provide more details. The notion that the system "hangs" is rather fuzzy. When does it hangs, do you see anything happen. Otherwise, revert to 13.2 which is till 2017 still good enough. Frans. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Jim Sabatke wrote:
On Feb 10, 2016, at 1:14 AM, Per Jessen <per@computer.org> wrote:
Jim Sabatke wrote:
OK, I've done two installs and both had almost the exact same problems, they wouldn't reboot after the install. I've really never had a problem installing a SuSE distro until Leap. The first was on my desktop, which has 4 SATA drives. I initially used the installer's recommended configuration, with / on sda and /home on sda. That refused to boot, with a blank screen on reboot, until I put /home on sda. Then it went perfectly. That sounds totally odd. I think it's highly unlikely that this has actually to do with what's being mounted where. I mistyped, or more likely, my iPad auto-corrected my /sdc to /sda. To clarify, the Leap install wanted to put / and /home on /sdc, which is a 1 TB drive. The install worked perfectly after moving / to sda. That was the only difference in my installs. It's an older desktop with BIOS
On 02/10/2016 03:13 AM, Per Jessen wrote: that supported Windows 3.1 when I bought the machine. I'm guessing I had a disk size problem, but I'm not sure, and I can't really go back and tell what happened or what might have worked on the blank, unresponsive screen. To clarify, for those confused by that, by blank I mean no graphics or characters, totally black. I wouldn't have bothered to write about this one since I did get it working. With the reboot, before the system started, I did get the input for BIOS or UEFI. I selected BIOS. However, the laptop sitting in my friend's house only has one drive, and it came with Windows 8.1. It acted the same, with a blank, unresponsive screen. I didn't have time to spend much debugging time, mostly because he has animals in the house that I'm pretty badly allergic to, so I need to kind of figure this out if I can, then get in and out as quickly as possible. I don't recall the exact disk size, but it was large, and I'm wondering if this is either a UEFI or disk size incompatibility. I've never dealt with UEFI as he had an older desktop before. When rebooting I tried selecting UEFI, but I got the disk not formatted error, and selecting BIOS simply hung the system with the same blank screen. On both systems I have no means to ssh as they are the only Linux boxes in the house. I don't even have another Windows box to load ssh software onto to try it.
FWIW, I have two Leap systems -
a test desktop, nvidia graphics, boots from software raid1. a server with very basic graphics, booting from iSCSI.
Then I tried to load Leap on a friend's laptop. He had only one drive, so I figured it would be easy. Same problem on reboot with a blank, unresponsive screen. Sounds like a graphics issue, in both cases perhaps. You're an experienced user - did you try switching to a virtual console, Ctrl-Alt-F1 ? It's been a little while since I've dabbled with difficult graphics cards, my desktops are all fairly backlevel hardware-wise. Did you try using "nomodeset"?
First, thanks for the effort so far.
I tried the virtual console, no luck. I have a GeForce 9800 GT sound card. Resolution is 1680x1050. Sounds good except not being able to get to a virtual console is not so good. If you google that card, you'll see some problems with it - I wonder if blacklisting 'nouveau' might be worth trying.
If you can access the system via ssh, try removing 'nouveau', otherwise you can blacklist it when you're booting: "BrokenModules=nouveau".
Some reference material: https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_the_hard_way#openSUSE_Tumbleweed_and_Leap
I did not try nomodeset. I'm about ready to try the other guy's laptop as soon as he gets me some network info, so I'll try that if it happens again. The laptop has Windows 8.1, does that provide any challenges I may have missed? I doubt it, but it's been years since I've dabbled in Windows.
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Op woensdag 10 februari 2016 01:58:53 schreef Jim Sabatke:
I did not try nomodeset.
You should.
I'm about ready to try the other guy's laptop as soon as he gets me some network info, so I'll try that if it happens again. The laptop has Windows 8.1, does that provide any challenges I may have missed? That hadn't occurred to me as it seemed to have the American problems as my old BIOS desktop. I just plain don't use Windows except for a couple of apps that don't run on Linux, which is probably made couple times a year.
I have Leap running on a desktop with two disks and a laptop still with Windows 8.1 on it. On both systems I have several openSUSE versions running besides Leap. The laptop is an UEFI system, the desktop is not. On the laptop I need to use nomodeset with 13.2 and Tumbleweed. No need for that on Leap. -- fr.gr. member openSUSE Freek de Kruijf -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Jim Sabatke composed on 2016-02-10 01:58 (UTC-0600):
I tried the virtual console, no luck. I have a GeForce 9800 GT sound card. Resolution is 1680x1050.
Sound card? Leap works fine here with a dual-DVI GeForce 8600GT gfxcard on 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 connected displays.
I did not try nomodeset.
Nomodeset is a workaround/failsafe/fallback. It applies only to X sessions (and maybe to Plymouth, which I don't allow to be installed), preventing access to FOSS video drivers for X, forcing use of either a proprietary driver (if installed), or generic FBDEV or VESA drivers, neither of which support 1680x1050 (or any other widescreen) displays at their native/preferred mode. In most black screen cases I have found forcing use of a universal mode on kernel cmdline to be useful, typically 800x600, 1024x768 or 1280x1024. Most kernels, regardless of what Grub cares or will warn about, will initialize with vga=788, vga=791 or vga=794. Modesetting kernels will eventually switch to an EDID native/preferred mode unless overridden by either Grub-compatible directive, or a video= parameter, so any of video=800x600, video=1024x768 or video=1280x1024 should force a mode a 1680x1050 display should support (optionally appending @60 or @75 or whatever you know the display supports or prefers, e.g. video=1024x768@60). Maybe an installation during which you taboo Plymouth would work better? -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
participants (5)
-
Felix Miata -
Frans de Boer -
Freek de Kruijf -
Jim Sabatke -
Per Jessen