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wwuck

Member

Registered: 2026-04-15

Posts: 2  

Devuan 6 excalibur installer fails to load on hyper-v

I have the unfortunate task of running Devuan on hyper-v.

Attempting to install Devuan 6 in a new VM fails after selecting the installer mode from the boot screen:

[    2.055791] scsi hostO: ata_piix
[    2.070888] scsi host1: ata_piix
[    2.082696] atal: PATA max UDMA/33 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma Oxffa0 irq 14 lpm-pol 0
[    2.094405] ata2: PATA max UDMA/33 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma Oxffa8 irq 15 lpm-pol 0
[    2.894856] ata2.00: ATAPI: Virtual CD, , max MWDMA2
[    2.917799] scsi 1:0:0:0: CD-ROM            Msft     Virtual CD/ROM.  1.0  PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
 2[    3.121506] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] scsi3-mmo drive: Ox/Ox tray
[    3.134507] cdrom: Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
[    3.184610] hv_utils: Registering HyperV Utility Driver
[    3.196355] hv_vmbus: registering driver hv_utils
[    3.214251] hv_utils: Heartbeat IC version 3.0
[    3.225565] hv_utils: Shutdown IC version 3.2
[    3.236876] hv_utils: TimeSync IC version 4.0
[    3.246926] hv_utils: VSS IC version 5.0
[    3.278708] hv_vmbus: registering driver hv_storvsc
[    3.292453] scsi host2: storvsc_host_t
[    3.310762] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access.    Msft     Virtual Disk     1.0  PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[    3.323828] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 209715200 512-bute logical blocks: (107 GB/100 GiB)
[    3.335613] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 4096-byte physical blocks
[    3.347124] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[    3.375571] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPD or F
UA
[    3.403805] hv_storvsc 00000000-0000-8899-0000-000000000000: tag#86 cmd 0x5a status: scsi 0x2 srb
 0×86 hv Oxc0000001
[    3.434884] hv_storvsc 00000000-0000-8899-0000-000000000000: tag#93 cmd 0x5a status: scsi 0x2 srb
 0×86 hv Oxc0000001
[    3.475335]  sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 >
[    3.488300] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
 3
Mount the cdrom:
[    3.773215] /dev/sr0: Can't open blockdev
638811 blocks
[    7.953230] hv_vmbus: unregistering driver hv_storvsc
[    7.994413] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Synchronizing SCSI cache
[    8.067524] hv_utils: De-Registered HyperV Utility Driver
[    8.082072] hv_vmbus: unregistering driver hv_utils

I get the same result for netinstall, desktop, and server images.  The live image boots into a console session (only framebuffer on hyper-v, so no X), but I haven't tried running refractainstaller there.

There is no problem installing from Debian 13 netinstall image or Devuan 5 daedalus netinstall image.

I have verified all iso images with PGP and sha256sum.

Is there any significant difference between Devuan 5 and Devuan 6 installer images? Is this a missing kernel driver that hyper-v is needing from the Devuan 6 installer?

Are there any kernel boot commands I can add on to the installer option to get more debug output?

ralph.ronnquist

Administrator

From: Battery Point, Tasmania, AUS

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 1,641  

Re: Devuan 6 excalibur installer fails to load on hyper-v

Looks to me like it's primarily slow on boot.

You might try by adding emerg to the boot command line. That will make init stop at end rather than error out, with a command shell. In that you try running the "/sbin/unpack" script by hand and make sure the media partition is found, mounted, and unpacked, before exiting the shell to let the /init script continue.

wwuck

Member

Registered: 2026-04-15

Posts: 2  

Re: Devuan 6 excalibur installer fails to load on hyper-v

Thanks Ralph.

Unfortunately it appears to hang after the last log line "hv_vmbus: unregistering driver hv_utils" regardless of whether I add extra boot command line parameters.