New installation: Minimal BASH-like Error

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hello,

I am trying to reinstall openSUSE Tumbleweed on an old, defective version of the same OS.
The ISO has been installed on a USB key.
The BIOS starts up correctly, but during loading, the minimal GRUB console is activated.

Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported....

I found a document that only works partially.
The installation scripts seem to load, but the actual installation fails.

Here is the link to the document.

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/linux-unix/how-to-fix-minimal-bash-like-line-editing-is-supported-grub-error-in-linux/

I managed to complete steps STEP1 - STEP3.
I don’t see how to proceed from here.

Any Idea’s?

Bests regards.

2

How did you create the installation USB stick? Is Ventoy involved in any way?
How do you boot the stick: UEFI or legacy BIOS?

1 Like
3

Hello,
Thank you for contacting us.

  • Ventoy is not used.
  • The stick boots in UEFI.
  • The previous installation was performed in secureboot.

To prepare the USB drive, I performed the following operations:

  1. Formatted the USB drive so that it has only one FAT partition (64 GiB)

  2. To find out which partition to install the ISO on:
    grep -Ff <(hwinfo --disk --short) <(hwinfo --usb --short)
    Answer:
    disk:
    /dev/sda Kingstone DataTraveler 3.0

  3. Unmount the sda disk.
    umount /dev/sda

  4. Finally, copy the ISO image to the USB drive…
    `dd_rescue openSUSE_Tumbleweed-DVD-x86_64-Snapshot20260113-Media.iso /dev/sda

I repeated the entire procedure this morning.

Now, the installation scripts are running (green scroll bars), then commands appear at the top of the screen, ending with a stationary cursor on black screen.

4

Do you have Nvidia hardware in this system? If yes, you need to add the nomodeset parameter to the kernel command line. After the system is installed and up, install the Nvidia drivers and remove nomodeset.

How to add nomodeset to the kernel command line:

  • When you are at grub boot loader screen, simply hit “e”
  • Navigate with the arrow keys to the line which starts with “linux”
  • Hit “end” at your keyboard
  • Put a blank and nomodeset at the end of this line
  • Hit “F10
5

Thanks for the quick reply.

The machine is indeed equipped with an NVIDIA graphics card.

Yesterday, I didn’t immediately get the screen offering installation, but that famous minimal BASH console.

My USB key wasn’t formatted properly; there were several partitions…
After deleting all the partitions and formatting it properly, it works better.

Once the boot started, I went to the “installation” item, then launched the edition with “e” and followed your very useful instructions.

After a few restarts, the NVIDIA drivers seem to be installed correctly.

However, I have a small problem with nomodeset in grub.
I can’t seem to remove this option.

I’ve tried from:

  • the bootloader menu (functional but not permanent)
  • Yast (no effect on the bootloader)
  • I can’t find the file /etc/default/grub
6

You can remove the parameter permanently via the following way:

sudo update-bootloader --del-option nomodeset
sudo update-bootloader --config
1 Like
7

It works perfectly.

Thank you very much.

D.

8

As afterburner information.

Are you aware that doing this is superfluous? Step #4 from your recipe will overwrite whatever there was on the device, thus not only your carefully created FAT file system, but also the partition table that defined that one partition.

9

Thank you for your comment.

I didn’t quite understand your suggestion. I assume that step 1 would be unnecessary if dd-rescue takes care of formatting the key. It is that ?

Since I’m not a computer expert, I take a few precautions, especially when it comes to creating an installation disk.
That’s why I format my disk at the beginning, but it’s probably redundant.

Best regards

10

I would not call it redundant, but complete waste of effort :wink:
What happens is that you write a partition table to the first block of the disk, then you create a file system after that partition table (complete with inodes spread all over it).

When that is complete you dd(well you took the trouble to invest in dd_rescue) starting from the first block (where the partition table is) and going on over all the information that forms the file system further on. All overwritten by the new information that forms your installation ISO.

BTW, step #1 and step #3 are also contradictory.

But please, skip my trial to be pedantic if you are not interested in what happens, but only in what the result is (an installed Tumbleweed system).

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