Last kernel up-date ... big mess!

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1

Hi,

I have a openSuSE 11.1 install from scratch and I have made several up-dates until this morning when disaster happened …
I have encrypted partitions using luks, both /root, swap, and /home.

I have made all kernel up-dates for SuSE 11.1 x86_64 so far and the new kernels always supported with no problem the encrypted partitions …
One of course may have some problems with nvidia drivers, but that is simple to install on the shell.

This time the mess is very problematic!
The new kernel does not recognize the encrypted partitions! So there is no way to boot.
Even with the old /boot it is not possible to do it.
Does anyone know how to install in the vmlinuz file support for cruptsetup ?

The actual error I get is something like

Error 17: Cannot mount select partition

booting with the old kernel does not help either … somehow along thee way it crashes … it needs some lib/modules there are not there …

The last up-date also wiped out the lib and modules from the last /usr/src tree last kernel 2.6.27.19-3.2-default …

How can I solve this.
This comes in the worst possible time, on my desktop with two disks of 1TB /each !!!

Regards

2

> How can I solve this.
> This comes in the worst possible time

treat the current release of openSUSE as absolutely unstable and
experimental software…do NOT use it for important, work (or play)…

wanna live on the edge?
install 11.1 with KDE4.2 and have a blast!
need to do some work?
mulit-boot to openSUSE 10.3 with KDE3.x
wanna play a silly game?
mulit-boot to Redmond’s finest…

ymmv,

deConficter

3

You’re talking nonsense.

openSUSE 11.1 is stable enough for productive use. I’m running v11.1 here with KDE 4.1.3 and everything works very well (apart from Google Earth).

4

Hi,

I would not call it unstable. I do not agree on that point.
But I do not use KDE4 … I use kde 3.5.
And also this is the first time this happened … anyway this is a bit disapointing.
(… And I have backups … and booting from dvd rescue mode recover everything on disk … )

Regards,

5

This a realistic analysis when openSUSE is placed within the spectrum of top distros. It’s well known that if you want cutting edge, go for Fedora or openSUSE. That assessment is not just about KDE. Other factors such as driver support (not this distro’s strongest feature in my experience), and Xorg release come into play and affect stability; not to mention complexity of installation, latest HW, and experience level. It’s right to set realistic expectations for users, especially new ones reading here. When burnt, they can take a long time to return, if ever.

Anyone who lives at the edge really needs appropriate backup.

Replies such as these don’t cut it:

You’re talking nonsense … openSUSE 11.1 is stable enough for productive use.

Again – YMMV. I don’t see that label on the tin… Also it just ignores the last 3 months of problem solving. Talking of problem solving, what does it do for the OP?

I would like to move my daily applications over to 11.1 with KDE 3.5.10. So far it’s stable and the best implementation of that combination. However a couple of the applications don’t work as well as they do with 10.3 and other distros, so I wait and multiboot.

I hope someone comes by who has the experience to solve the OP’s problem…:slight_smile:

6

Hi,

Maybe we have different experiences, but so far everything I have on 11.1 works perfectly.
And also I can not complaint about driver support, before the official release of nvidia 180.29 driver fo example I installed it on the cli, and then on a kernel up-date you just had to run it again … no problem.
On the kernel up-date before this last one the yast online up-date even installed the SuSE supported packages for the nvidia driver version …
Also Vmware Server 2.0 , Skype, navicat, Google Earth, Urban Terror, Second Life, compiz support, hardware support (wifi specially) on many notebooks … you name it, everything works great.
I think that kde 4 is not yet in par with KDE 3.5.
So that is the reason I do not yet use KDE 4 …

The issue is not stability. It is more related with KDE 4 “readiness” to compete with the long installed kde 3.5 …
And I also agree on “the edge” about the distros you mentioned, but I thing Fedora is by far much more on the Edge then OpenSuSE (that is why I do not use it)… OpenSuSE is just ahead of …say … Ubuntu lattest … that’s all.

Hey! good folks! No distro flame war :slight_smile: please! not again! We are all grown ups :slight_smile:

Regards,
Pedro

7

> Hey! good folks! No distro flame war :slight_smile: please! not again!

hey! you you asked “How can I solve this.” and i gave you my opinion,
and labeled it as such: Do NOT use bleeding edge software…

in MY opinion: the number of times that folks have been left stranded
by “yesterday’s update” (in the then latest versions 10.x and 11.x) is
just far too often for me to take the risk…

yet, i love SUSE and continue to use it (10.3 because it has been
stable for over a year now)…

ymmv,

deConficter

8

Yes no need for distrowar or even oswar. Now if your system is a corporate or close to system I would go for SLED, openSUSE or Fedora or any other community distro aren’t meant for really critical implementations. Even if you were running SLED, RH or any MS system, having a testsystem for testing patches is standard in business IT. Good though to here that you have backups. Btw why do you think you need encrypted file systems, in my experience they don’t add much that you couldn’t get with rethinking the organisation outside the IT-system.

9

Hi,

Yeah … I know the intention of the replies is good.
And of course all bleeding edge software does have a risk associated.
My problem is that I really want to have the latest and greatest laptops with all hardware operating… so I need a bit of hardware support and this means usually the most recent version of the kernel …
But fear not friends!
I have a plan …

I looked at my computer and it contains two disks …

on hdd 1:

/boot
swap (encrypted)
/ (encrypted)
/var

hdd 2

/home (encrypted) will be untouched!

Things are recoverable!

I will install 11.1 fresh with this setup:

sda1 - /boot
sda2 swap
sda3 untouched!
sda4 now is /var will be /

And this solves the problem!!!
I just have to encrypt again /swap (8GB not much)

and them simply erase all of / in sda4 except for the current /var/* backup-> /var/initialvarbackup or, …

I think this will work !!

After I just have to recover initrd! And that’s simple!

Once the kernel boots and recognizes /sda and /sdb things will be ok again. Software is already installed on disk … so I just need the kernel to boot and recognize my previous system …

I will report on this one soon.

Regards,
Pedro

10

Hi

all I can think of is to boot from DVD and install the original kernel. Further I recommend to mount /boot on its own unencrypted partition.

Good luck!

11

Hi,

I do not think there is any way to encrypt the boot partition … the system needs files like … the kernel … so this is something that can not be done …

and I have recovered my system totally!

YEAH!!!

Like I mentioned, I just installed from dvd 11.1, it was not even necessary to re-encrypt the swap partition!

OpenSuSE installer recognized the drive and it was all very very easy!

I had on disk:

/sda1 boot
/sda2 swap … encrypted
/sda3 / encryp
/sda4 /var

/sdb1 /home encrypted …

All i did was a new install with the option to make New Custom partitions and them I made:

/sda1 the new boot

/sda2 swap … the installer asked for the password and even recognized it has encrypted ! Very GOOD!

/sda3 … nothing done here! that is my previous /

sda4 was previous /var and served as the new /
the installer complained about this partition being used and so on but it was a breeze!

I just had to boot after the first install (a very basic one as this was just to obtain a new kernel nothing else ), install the up-grade for the lattest kernel (equal to the one on previous /sda3 2.6.27.21-0.1) with yast.
Then I went to the shell and remounted the encrypted partitions, renamed the swap (cryptsetup -v luksClose and them cryptsetup luksopen with a better name )
them did reopen /home sdab1 and / sda3
mounted /sda1 as /boot, modified the /boot/grub/menu.lst and also /etc/fstab
made a new initrd with the command:

mkinitrd -d /dev/mapper/root -f "dm luks"

and that’s basically it …
it rebooted like it always did …

and meanwhile folks … carefull with Western digital Green disks … I just noticed the pc had two of those !!!

forum.excito.net :: View topic - WARNING: WD Green Power drives may kill themselves !!

Regards,
Pedro

note :slight_smile: I think I deserve a punishment by bashing SuSE kernel up-date! I will browser for about, say 5 minutes with ie7 … that is sufficient punishment …
OH! And about stability … is there a OpenSuSE 11.2 Beta!!! :slight_smile: