[SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

forte · 2025-02-28 13:01:29

Hello everyone,

I've just tried to install Devuan Daedalus using the net installer ISO. I downloaded it using a torrent file, but I've verified that the checksum matches to the ones provided, and that the GPG signature is correct as well. Then, I copied the ISO file over to an USB drive which is formatted using Ventoy, which I've used before for other ISO files, including Debian's.

It starts and I'm presented with the installation menu (first screenshot in this page):

https://www.devuan.org/os/documentation … all-devuan

However, after selecting either 1) Install or 2) Expert Install I see the same result. A black screen with a lot of text flying by saying that it cannot mount on /cdrom. I guess I should've taken a picture of that (I'll update the post in a minute).

I really can't say much more than that. I'm left with a prompt but I'm not sure what to do with it. Commands like shutdown or reboot don't work, so I have to forcefully turn off my laptop pressing the power button.

Any help is much appreciated, thank you.

Last edited by forte (2025-02-28 13:13:14)

rolfie · 2025-02-28 13:29:02

Devuan Daedalus is not compatible to Ventoy. Does not work.

Use dd or cp to write the image to an empty stick, that works fine.

forte · 2025-02-28 16:34:34

I suspected that much, but wasn't really sure if that might have been the case or not... and I didn't want to lose a few ISO files that I had in that thumb drive. I'll give it another go over the weekend, see how it goes, and report back.

Thanks for such a quick reply by the way!

greenjeans · 2025-02-28 17:55:29

There is also Mintstick available in the repo if you'd like a simple GUI method. It's worked well for me over 100 times now and never failed.

Drawback: It will by default use the whole stick, but you can use gnome-disks utility afterwards to create other partitions on the stick.

For multiple ISO's/Live stuff on the same stick and/or adding persistence, refracta2usb is what I use.

For netinstall ISO's I usually burn it to a CD and use that, simple and bulletproof, but newer machines seem to have given up on optical drives.

hacksenwerk · 2025-03-01 10:59:27

rolfie wrote:

Devuan Daedalus is not compatible to Ventoy. Does not work.

I can confirm that.
Also keep in mind that other operating system ISOs are affected too (not all), I discovered that. No matter if they are installers or live-media.

Last edited by hacksenwerk (2025-03-01 11:01:31)

ralph.ronnquist · 2025-03-01 11:31:03

The point is that Ventoy does not provide the respetive ISOs as mountable partitions which is what many installers expect and require; they require that the initrd software of the installer is able mount the media.

They are not set up for "browsing" available partitions for directory trees and search for their media as an image file.

Those installers that are complete in their initrd work with Ventoy, because the Ventoy boot loader knows how to browse the Ventoy partition for the selected image file, then it loads the kernel and initrd from the that image file, and boots that kernel. At that point it drops all access details for the image file.

Also those installers work that have initrd software that can mount the Ventoy partition and search for their own media as image file.

In fact the daedalus installer preamble attempts to do that. But requires (if I remember right) firstly that the Ventoy partition is labelled "Ventoy" and secondly that the partition with the image file is an exfat partition. If the preamble then finds the image file it will set up a loop device fo the image file to make it appropriately mountable for the installer proper.

When you copy the image file directly to a drive it is a due mounatble partition for the installer initrd.

RedGreen925 · 2025-03-01 16:11:06

The point is that Ventoy does not provide the respetive ISOs as mountable partitions which is what many installers expect and require; they require that the initrd software of the installer is able mount the media.

The only ISO I have ever found that will not work for install with Ventoy is the Devuan, supposedly the same ISO except for branding/sources with the equivalent Debian on it boots and installs perfectly..

ralph.ronnquist · 2025-03-02 02:26:01

Not sure what you are saying there? Does Ventoy do things in some other way than what I described? Is it different now from before?

And what does "supposedly the same ISO except for branding/sources with the equivalent Debian on it" mean?

RedGreen925 · 2025-03-02 03:17:35

And what does "supposedly the same ISO except for branding/sources with the equivalent Debian on it" mean?

That means two installers built using the same method only changing the brand name and sources should have identical results when used. The Devuan installer obviously does not use the same method as Debian to build it as it fails to install with the Ventory used. The other question you ask about means exactly what I said. I will say again if you cannot understand it. Devuan is the only ISO I have ever tried to install from with Ventoy that has not worked, all of the other dozen or so tried have done it perfectly fine. It is the outlier in all of them not some common problem with it you try to portray.

greenjeans · 2025-03-02 04:27:20

And yet again we see the superiority of the optical disk, as it never fails.

RedGreen925 · 2025-03-02 05:24:19

And yet again we see the superiority of the optical disk, as it never fails.

Yeah but who has any of them laying around to waste on an installer. And good luck just going out and buying them anywhere, need to be ordered online here. I have some dvd blanks that have sat unused for years but no cd that I know off. I gave up on the dvd after discovering what garbage they are. Tried to get some files off an about year old disks and what a mess, it was errors everywhere. That is when I switched to hard drives for my storage needs they very rarely fail and I have so many backups. Fours sets of zfs raidz in four different machines I have accumulated as leftovers when upgraded over the years. That I never need to worry about that massive amount of data I have stored. Well I do being the paranoid about my computing freak I am, I backup my installs all the time. As a cron job that runs every two hours, before any major upgrade with a cloning to external drive then booted in my duplicate machine I have to confirm the backup worked then upgrade. And/or backup to the internal backup drive as well, I take my data safety seriously.

ralph.ronnquist · 2025-03-02 13:20:33

Yes, the Devuan ISO is built differently from the Debian ISO; the build processes are completely different although many of the building pieces used are common at least in name but also in full.

Any ISO that "works with Ventoy" either includes software explicitly for working with Ventoy, or have their installer fully contained in the initrd that Ventoy unpacks.

The Devuan ISO effectively lacks software for working with Ventoy, since the software it has for that installation usecase is too restricted; it requires your Ventoy partition to be an exfat filesystem labelled "Ventoy".

Apart from that the Devuan installer simply requires the iso media to be directly mountable; i.e. the disk in whole or a disk partition.

greenjeans · 2025-03-02 16:42:28

@RedGreen925 They have blanks for sale at most big box stores, I picked up CD's and DVD's recently at walmart. Also found a pack of 10 DVD's at a secondhand store for .99 cents a couple weeks ago.

I have CD's and DVD's I burned going all the way back to 2007 that work fine, just need to store properly and be careful when using. I like having a non-electronic backup for my work and important stuff. Have worked with electronics all my life, and seen too much fail to put all my faith in such.

golinux · 2025-03-02 16:55:24

OT: I still have a stash of Sony "taiyo yuden" disks.

RedGreen925 · 2025-03-02 20:36:48

I have CD's and DVD's I burned going all the way back to 2007 that work fine, just need to store properly and be careful when using. I like having a non-electronic backup for my work and important stuff. Have worked with electronics all my life, and seen too much fail to put all my faith in such.

So have I, it has been nearly fifty years since I touched my first computer, a TRS-80 at the local Radio Shack, and all I can go by is my experience with them. And that has been mine with discs since that happened a good more than dozen or so years ago I have not bothered with the junk anymore since that incident. If all of the 20 drives in those four machines go tits up at once then I loose it all. Well not really as I have single large one less than year old back drive for all of it. As it is I have lost one drive in the last who knows how many years, it was probably a decade since the oldest in them machines is from around 2014, it was newer just under three year old one that went. Less than month from the warranty going on it so did not cost a single cent to replace. I am rather shocked that more have not gone from seeing all the complaints online about it. Though like all of these problems people seem to have that never affect me, it makes me wonder just what the hell they are doing that causes the problems. That is my experience with electronics, they just work if they survive any length of time. They usually die off nice and quick if they are garbage. Oh and the local Walmart was what I was thinking about when saying good luck buying them, no where in sight there. Or anywhere else for that matter. I do not live in large city perhaps they stock them there. All my electronics are protected by good quality UPS/surge protector/line conditioner so no bad electrical signals can get to them. That could have something to do with their longevity.

forte · 2025-03-03 09:40:48

Thank you all for your help and replies!

I managed to install Devuan successfully yesterday but only had time to run it for a little while. I found however a couple of issues, regarding the trackpad and audio. Should I open new threads to ask about those?

fsmithred · 2025-03-03 10:42:33

Yes, a new thread for the post-installation issues would be good. That makes it easier to find the useful information in the discussion later.

forte · 2025-03-03 12:30:07

Will do, thank you very much.

Although I'd still like to ask here, since there's an ongoing conversation about it, is there an easy way to tell when an ISO will work on Ventoy or does the project need to specifically mention this? The reason I ask is because in the past I had similar problems with other ISO files, but I wasn't sure if they were caused because of this or just a bad USB stick.

rolfie · 2025-03-03 13:41:33

Although I'd still like to ask here, since there's an ongoing conversation about it, is there an easy way to tell when an ISO will work on Ventoy or does the project need to specifically mention this? The reason I ask is because in the past I had similar problems with other ISO files, but I wasn't sure if they were caused because of this or just a bad USB stick.

No, there isn't an easy way. As far as I am concerned, Daedalus is the only release that fails on Ventoy. ASCII, Beowulf and Chimaera work fine. Same for all Debians I have tried, Arch Linux, AcroLinux, Mint > 20.1, LMDE 5 and 6, ...

On the other hand, Ventoy seems to be sort of dead, according to their web page there will be no further version past 0.99.

greenjeans · 2025-03-03 20:37:40

@rolfie : Refracta2usb is your friend.

Though I do wish I could find a way to make it use the onboard isolinux in an iso instead of having to add syslinux on top of that.

Mintstick works perfectly with Daedalus too.

forte · 2025-03-07 18:23:48

On the other hand, Ventoy seems to be sort of dead, according to their web page there will be no further version past 0.99.

Hi, sorry for the delay. I was curious about this statement, but it appears that there are some updates recently according to the Ventoy site: https://ventoy.net/en/doc_news.html

rolfie · 2025-03-07 19:07:13

Thanks, interesting news.

ralph.ronnquist · 2025-03-08 04:42:50

rolfie wrote:

Daedalus is the only release that fails on Ventoy. ASCII, Beowulf and Chimaera work fine.

I am surprised to hear that! Afaik they all need to mount the media, and ventoy doesn't offer it as mountable. Perhaps you could provide me with a such loaded USB with, say, chimaera, to investigate?

EDIT: the installer may well start and bring up a dialog, but it fails after a couple of dialogs when it comes to the step that needs to mount the media. That step essentially uses blkid to find the mountable devices. When using a ventoy boot, the ISO is merely a file somewhere in the first partition.

goomish · 2025-03-08 09:50:00

I can confirm what rolfie wrote. I can run Chimaera installer using Ventoy, but it fails with Daedalus.

Last edited by goomish (2025-03-08 09:50:52)

ralph.ronnquist · 2025-03-08 10:58:26

Right; can you install chimaera with it?

I know it runs and so does daedalus, but they differ in when they need the media. Both of them have the problem that when they need to mount the media, they fail.

EDIT: Though, the Daedalus boot preamble includes logic to look for the ISO as a file in a partition of type exfat and labelled "Ventoy".

So if the Ventoy partition would be labelled "Ventoy" and is of type exfat, then the Daedalus preamble may find the file and loop-back mount that for the installer (as well as for finding the actual installer initrd in the first place). And in that case installation is made possible. This logic is not present in the chimaera iso.

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#1 2025-02-28 13:01:29

[SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#2 2025-02-28 13:29:02

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#3 2025-02-28 16:34:34

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#4 2025-02-28 17:55:29

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#5 2025-03-01 10:59:27

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#6 2025-03-01 11:31:03

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#7 2025-03-01 16:11:06

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#8 2025-03-02 02:26:01

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#9 2025-03-02 03:17:35

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#10 2025-03-02 04:27:20

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#11 2025-03-02 05:24:19

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#12 2025-03-02 13:20:33

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#13 2025-03-02 16:42:28

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#14 2025-03-02 16:55:24

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#15 2025-03-02 20:36:48

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#16 2025-03-03 09:40:48

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#17 2025-03-03 10:42:33

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#18 2025-03-03 12:30:07

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#19 2025-03-03 13:41:33

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#20 2025-03-03 20:37:40

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#21 2025-03-07 18:23:48

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#22 2025-03-07 19:07:13

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#23 2025-03-08 04:42:50

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#24 2025-03-08 09:50:00

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

#25 2025-03-08 10:58:26

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to install Daedalus

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