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Bug 124781 - GLI crashes at various points
Summary: GLI crashes at various points
Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO
Alias: None
Product: Gentoo Release Media
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Installer (show other bugs)
Hardware: x86 Linux
: Normal normal (vote)
Assignee: Gentoo Linux Installer
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2006-03-03 05:38 UTC by Kevin
Modified: 2006-03-24 13:46 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---


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Description Kevin 2006-03-03 05:38:44 UTC
no emerge --info data because this happens upon booting the x86 2006.0 LiveCD.

The only requirement necessary for me to cause this to happen is to boot with the following grub command:

gentoo-nofb nohotplug
or
gentoo-nofb nodetect

It probably does the same thing with:

gentoo nohotplug
and
gentoo nodetect

When booting with these parameters, the GLI cannot complete without crashing at multiple points.

Some hardware issue requires me to boot the subject CD with either the
"nodetect" or "nohotplug" parameters.  Without one of these, the boot
process hangs when detecting pnp hardware.  I suspect that the cause may
be one of the two Digium PCI cards that I have in the machine, but not sure.

So I'm booting the LiveCD at the grub prompt with this command:

gentoo-nofb nohotplug

Happily, in spite of this, my NIC is being detected and the correct
(tulip) module is being loaded for it automatically.

However, the curses-based GLI is failing on me constantly at the stage
where I manually configure the NIC.

I've tried this many times, and every time, the installer program fails
with the words:

"The setup program seems to have failed"

That's all I get.

I've also tried setting up the network manually by editing
/etc/conf.d/net and starting up the network, then starting sshd, then
remotely logging into the box and running the installer that way.  That
method gets me past the network config part of the GLI, but I've found
that the installer crashes at various other points also: when I try to
save the XML profile and a few other points that I've just learned to
try and avoid as I walk through the installer steps.

But I'm at the point now where I've run the installer 15 or 20 times and
every time it ends the same way, with the error message above.
Sometimes it ends this way at the network config step, other times it
ends this way at other steps, but it always crashes.  Plus, I can't find
anywhere in the script that it allows me to set mountpoints for the
partitions that I've created.

Is anyone else seeing this and can anyone recommend a work-around?  I'd
be happy to share my dmesg output or any other details if someone thinks
it would help improve the installer program.

Since the 2006.0 handbook assumes that I'm installing with the GLI, it
seems that my only other option for installing is with the minimal CD
and the general installation handbook.  If anyone has other ideas on how
to install from one of the 2006 series of CDs, I'd very much appreciate
learning of them.

TIA for any suggestions.
Comment 1 Andrew Gaffney (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-03-04 21:47:28 UTC
Were you using the dialog-based frontend when you got these errors? If so, can you try using the GTK+ frontend (or the dialog-based if you were using the GTK). Any other messages would be helpful. You're giving us *very* little info to go on.
Comment 2 Kevin 2006-03-06 04:14:08 UTC
My apologies for the scarcity of information in the bug report, but that's all the information I get when I use the GLI.  I think I answered some of your questions already though: curses-based GLI (not the GTK+ based one).  I can't use the GTK+ one (apparently because of an incompatible (old?) video card).  I can see the start-up program attempt to start X, but it's a whacked screen.  Also, I'd be happy to post my dmesg output if you'd like, but it would obviously be lengthy which is why I haven't done so already.  I s'pose I could attach a file.  Would that help or not?
Comment 3 Preston Cody (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-03-06 07:58:26 UTC
attach any and all information that can help us figure out the problem.
Comment 4 Andrew Gaffney (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-03-10 21:47:03 UTC
Unfortunately, you haven't given us enough information to even take a guess at figuring out what's going on. Reopen when you can provide more information.
Comment 5 Jeffrey Forman (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-03-24 13:46:39 UTC
Moving to Release Media/Installer.