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rmrichesjr

Member

Registered: 2018-12-18

Posts: 52  

Which Excalibur install problems fixed by 6.1.1?

After doing a test VM from 6.1.0 starting a couple of months ago using the 'server' ISO, I tried to install Excalibur on the main physical machine and hit a few problems:

- The installer did not activate the link for the Ethernet interface, so mirror, clock, etc. did not work while installing.

- Installation of GRUB failed.  Daedalus had a similar problem, but using chroot to create a grub config file and manually copying that config file into the Chimera installation's /boot/grub worked.  For Excalibur, even with "mount --bind ..." for /dev, /proc, and /sys, grub-mkconfig still shows 3 errors "md124 not found" (where /dev/md124 is intended to be Excalibur's /boot partition).

- There's also a less significant issue for physical machines with two optical drives that if the CD is in the second drive, the beginning of the 'install base system' step errors out with "Failed to determine the codename for the release."

Is it documented which (if any) of the above is fixed between 6.1.0 and 6.1.1?

Meanwhile, I'll try to re-install from the 6.1.1 server ISO and then use chroot from the 6.1.1 Live CD if GRUB installation still fails.

rbit

Administrator

Registered: 2018-06-12

Posts: 133  

Re: Which Excalibur install problems fixed by 6.1.1?

For the installer ISOs, 6.1.0 -> 6.1.1 changes are listed here: https://git.devuan.org/devuan/installer … a1ca9fb841
Perhaps someone else with a raid setup can assist you with /dev/md124 problem.
I hadn't tested a 2-optical drive system with the installer in the 2nd drive, and was unaware of the issue.

rmrichesjr

Member

Registered: 2018-12-18

Posts: 52  

Re: Which Excalibur install problems fixed by 6.1.1?

Thanks for the link.  It doesn't look like the larger issues I encountered are covered, but then the installer problem I encountered with 6.0.0 and fixed in 6.1.0 doesn't appear to match the descriptions there.

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn

Member

Registered: 2023-11-27

Posts: 497  

Re: Which Excalibur install problems fixed by 6.1.1?

may or may-not help but still good information on raid at:

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=7213

and also perhaps:

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=7015

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rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,473  

Re: Which Excalibur install problems fixed by 6.1.1?

- The installer did not activate the link for the Ethernet interface, so mirror, clock, etc. did not work while installing.

I would claim this is not an installer issue. If the network does not work its most likely an issue related to user input.

rmrichesjr

Member

Registered: 2018-12-18

Posts: 52  

Re: Which Excalibur install problems fixed by 6.1.1?

I would claim this is not an installer issue. If the network does not work its most likely an issue related to user input.

I have notes from my installations of Beowulf, Chimaera, and Daedalus.  There was no difference in user input from those to Excalibur.  I suspected the installer might have not loaded the necessary kernel module to access the NIC, but then the installer did give me the choice of the two NICs on the motherboard.

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,473  

Re: Which Excalibur install problems fixed by 6.1.1?

I can't recall any network failure during installations that was not due to operator error, i.e. mistyping IP numbers or similar. Anyhow, two nics is an unusual setup and maybe this has led to problems? I have only dealt with one nic on many installations.

AFAIK there is no way to skip modules for known nics, unlike this topic that you may only get ext2 and no ext3/4 when jumping over the "load extra modules" in expert mode.

rmrichesjr

Member

Registered: 2018-12-18

Posts: 52  

Re: Which Excalibur install problems fixed by 6.1.1?

For the network link problem, the installer's logs showed several complaints about not being able to find firmware or missing firmware, which may or may not be related to the link problem.  So, with no reason not to, I tried the other NIC.  As expected (because that's the wrong network), that didn't work, either.  However, going back and trying the original (correct) NIC again, this time the link LED came on and everything worked, even the clock and mirror.  The next time through the installer, I tried the wrong NIC and then the correct NIC, and that worked.  For all attempts, the IP address and other settings were identical.  It's convenient that the installer remembers the IP address and such.

For the boot loader installation failure, it turns out the installer was trying to install for i386 PC using grub-pc and grub-pc-bin.  Apparently, it assumes it should install for the same BIOS/UEFI type as the installer booted from.  It'd be nice if the installer asked rather than assuming.  Booting the installer CD via UEFI rather than 'legacy' worked.  Now, I can boot either Daedalus or Excalibur from the GRUB menu until I get Excalibur's /etc and friends tuned/customized.

Thanks for the suggestions.

kapqa

Member

Registered: 2019-01-02

Posts: 710  

Re: Which Excalibur install problems fixed by 6.1.1?

had my own share of issues with dexcalibure 6.1.1 this week ~
had already a triple boot on am4 inplace but decided to make space for devuan since nowadays can live totally without ubuntu since all software also available to some degree on devuan.

however, it took me several times to install-reinstall since the first two attempts failed for reasons not fully understood.

the first time i made usb stick with mkusb ~ the install probably went through ~ but afterwards grub complained something about shim-something, "you need to load the kernel frist"
made probably another attempt , this time usb stick made with "rufus" - standard settings (mbr > bios or uefi) and made sure it booted via uefi; again, went through, but the same error at grub.
it dawned on me, to change probably the UEFI secure boot setting from "standard" to "custom" in BIOS;
but after another attempt, the same RUFUS made usb image, again the error "you need to load kernel first" ~

luckily i have already burned excalbure 6.1.1 onto dvd-rw (very many thanks for that!=) and with the dvd.iso image it went through and booted;

would like to emphasize that for the usb-stick i used also the full 6.1.1.iso and not the net-install;

in general i have had most luck installing linux with burned .iso onto dvd, no matter the distro;
with devuan 6.1. especially had more problems installing overall than with other distro, espcially when compared to previous iterations of devuan; but its worth the effort, devuan function just well after setup, glad have found it.

cds

Member

Registered: 2024-08-25

Posts: 2  

Re: Which Excalibur install problems fixed by 6.1.1?

Wouldn't it be easier to have a large USB stick/drive/what have you, and install Ventoy on said usb device then just add the ISO as needed.
Seems that would remove a bunch of unknowns and easier to boot other ISO files instead of going through the "burn to usb" process.

But, chances are you knew this already.