OpenSUSE 12.1 64 bits Installation freezes at 30% - Help needed

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Dear all,

I am new to the forum and new to Linux (first time user) and have a little issues on the installation. I have read some articles dn the forum in order to solve my problem but am still stuck.So any help would be much appreciated. First, what I would like to do:

Installl Linux on a Windows 7 computer (ASUS P8Z77-V LX, i7 3770K 3.5 GHz, 16 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 2048 MB) with 2 hard disks.
The Windows 7 OS resides on the 128 GB SSD and I would like to install Linux on the 500 GB HDD. For what I have read this is way too much disk space for Linux but I want to keep the 2 OS separated completelly.

What I have tried:

  • Download the OpenSUSE 12.1 64 bits .iso under Windows 7 and burned it to a DVD-R at low speed (after the first installation failed I re-tried from scratch so download again, new disk, …)
  • Restarted the computer with the disc in the drive.
  • I chose Installation and selected language, keyboard and time zone settings
  • In the poartition piece I chose:

sdb1 for root (20.43 GB) ext4
sdb2 for swap (2.01 GB, set by the installer) swap
sdb3 for home (first with 20 GB, the last time I tried with the remamaining 450 GB (round about)) ext4
mount point to sda2 as windows /c (sda1 is reserved for system use)

  • After that I added some software components such as C/C++ developer, Java developer, Linux Kernel developer anbd some server packages
  • Whenever I start installing the installation freezes at 30% after which I have to reset the computer

I tried several times to install OpenSUSE. Between every time I logged on to Windows 7 in order to delete the partitions which seemed to be created during he Linux installation.

I have absolutelly no clue what I am doing wrong or what the issue could be. I’d like to provide some more detailed ibnfo on where exactly the installation stalls but don’t know how to get this info or how to perform the installation in text mode (and whether this requires some more knowledge than I currently posess (NONE).

Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks
Björn

2

Before you try installing did you ‘Do this First’?
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10573557/12.1_install/01_bootsplash.jpg

What is your partition setup?

3

Thanks for the quick reply.
I launched the installation without opening a live session in one of the several attempts I did the media check and it went through. After that the installation was launched automatically. I have to admit that the check took quite a while though.

In regards to my partition setup I have 1 SSD with 128 GB (1 Volume only, 100 MB reserved for system use)
In addition I have a 500 GB HDD with is not partitioned at all so all disk space unallocated. This drive is meant for OpenSUSE.

The curious thing is that the installation always stalls at 30% now. Any ideas?

Thanks again

4

I have to crash now and I’m away for a few days. @Peter1Pan

But
In a live session open a terminal and do

su -
fdisk -l

See also
http://forums.opensuse.org/content/26-install-opensuse-win7-guide.html

5

I will do that. Many thanx for your help.

6

On 06/30/2012 09:36 PM, Peter1Pan wrote:
> What I have tried:
> - Download the OpenSUSE 12.1 64 bits .iso under Windows 7 and burned it
> to a DVD-R at low speed (after the first installation failed I re-tried
> from scratch so download again, new disk, …)
> - Restarted the computer with the disc in the drive.
> - I chose Installation

this may or may not be helpful (but since you didn’t say you did this,
it is necessary to first make sure you have good install media):

did you check the downloaded iso to make sure you had a good copy?
on the page where you downloaded, down below the big “Download” button
is a section named “Need help?” and in it a link to “Download Help”
where you will find instructions on how to check the iso by using
“Checksums”… once you have a perfect iso, then burn the disk and
after you boot from it, BEFORE you select “Installation” do this:
http://tinyurl.com/3qde66h

if it does not self test ok, do NOT attempt an install…

if it tests ok, then don’t start adding a bunch of software (as you
mentioned C/C++ developer and others) lets just see if you can’t get a
default install…btw, which desktop environment did you pick?

so, when you say the “installation freezes at 30%” are you saying that
nothing is happening? i mean: is it just the screen that freezes? and,
the hard drive lights blink, or not? you can (or can not) move the
mouse? do the caps and/or scroll LEDs blink? can you hear the fan
running? hard drive clicking or what?

if you hold down the Ctrl and Alt key and then press F1 what happens? if
something happens then hold down Ctrl and Alt keys and press F10…i
guess you might see some error messages there…if so, take a photo
(clear please) and post it to paste.opensuse.org, and return the URL
(and answers to above) to this thread…

–
dd

7

Since you get past partitioning, and into the installatition of packages, then I know its having problems at 1/3 of the way installing packages. I’d bet it’s hanging on a package. Given this, there are a couple possibilities. 1) bad download. The download is corrupted some how. 2) bad burn. The burning to the cd/dvd went bad. This could be either a software problem or hardware problem. Gnenerally, burn it at the slowest speed you can.

8

Hi
Also when installing disable the install from images. It’s on the last
summary page before your press ‘install’ down the bottom of the list.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 3.0.34-0.7-default
up 22:23, 2 users, load average: 0.36, 0.31, 0.32
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

9

On 2012-06-30 22:43, dd@home.dk wrote:
> On 06/30/2012 09:36 PM, Peter1Pan wrote:

> if it does not self test ok, do NOT attempt an install…

One of the posts says he did already.

> if it tests ok, then don’t start adding a bunch of software (as you
> mentioned C/C++ developer and others) lets just see if you can’t get a
> default install…btw, which desktop environment did you pick?

Right, use as default a setup as possible, leave the installing of extra
packages till after the system is up and running. Easier to find out about
problems.

> so, when you say the “installation freezes at 30%” are you saying that
> nothing is happening? i mean: is it just the screen that freezes? and, the
> hard drive lights blink, or not? you can (or can not) move the mouse? do
> the caps and/or scroll LEDs blink? can you hear the fan running? hard drive
> clicking or what?

Suggestion: the install screen has two tabs, one that shows slides and
another with boring details: choose that one.

> if you hold down the Ctrl and Alt key and then press F1 what happens? if
> something happens then hold down Ctrl and Alt keys and press F10…i guess
> you might see some error messages there…if so, take a photo (clear
> please) and post it to paste.opensuse.org, and return the URL (and answers
> to above) to this thread…

Further: navigate to all the text consoles: alt-f1, alt-f2… alt-f12
(except f7 which is the graphical session). Some of these contain messages,
so photograph them.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

10

Hi all,

Many thanks for all your help. I have now started again, downloaded a fresh iso, checked the download with MD5 checksum and burned hthe image to a DVD-R. This time using an external disc writer (good one).

I have burned the disc at slowest speed (4x) the restarted the computer. After booting from the disc, again with the external reder/writer I checked installation media. Again it took quite a while. I pressed a button and all of a sudden it finished without any notification launching the installation (not sure as this is as expected).
Following your further advices I:

  • selected default software packages only
  • disabled booting from images
  • selected the tab with release note

Now it stopped advancing the installation at 70%. Mouse can be moved, hard drive lights stops blinking.
Tabs cannot be changed in GUI though. Next steps:

  • Try CTRL + ALT + F keys

All text consoles are just black so nothing at all is shown on any of them.

Is there anything I can do to output the installation in text mode?

PS: have to drop off for a coulpe of hours and get some sleep.

Cheers

11

On 2012-07-01 03:46, Peter1Pan wrote:

> Now it stopped advancing the installation at 70%. Mouse can be moved,
> hard drive lights stops blinking.
> Tabs cannot be changed in GUI though. Next steps:

GUI crashed, then…

> - Try CTRL + ALT + F keys
>
> All text consoles are just black so nothing at all is shown on any of
> them.

Nothing? That’s weird.

You could try that switch before the crash, just as a check. No need to run
the installation again, just start the DVD, pass a few screens, and try to
switch to the text consoles, to see if they are working or dead.

> Is there anything I can do to output the installation in text mode?

It is possible to force the installation to run in text mode. I have not
done it in a long time, so I don’t remember what incantations to do.

> PS: have to drop off for a coulpe of hours and get some sleep.

Me too…

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

12

Hold down the SHIFT key when booting the install media, it should start a Text mode Install

At the prompt, type: linux

and hit enter

13

On 07/01/2012 03:46 AM, Peter1Pan wrote:
> After booting from the disc, again with the external
> reder/writer I checked installation media. Again it took quite a while.
> I pressed a button and all of a sudden it finished without any
> notification launching the installation (not sure as this is as
> expected).

NO, it is not normal!

after starting the self-test, let it finish…

there is LOTS to check, it takes time.

when it has finished it will report either an error, or not.

if you can’t resist touching the machine, or pressing a button: sit on
your hands! make a pot of tea! or go for a walk!!

i don’t know, maybe (with your disk reader/hardware) it takes an hour.

lots of variables…

personally i would NOT proceed with a text install until i’ve confirmed
the install media is ok!

i’d say if it won’t complete the check on your machine then take that
disk to a different machine/different reader and run the test again–and
WAIT for the answer.

AND, if it completes the check relatively quickly on a different machine
then you need to find out what is wrong with your hardware (maybe there
is a BIOS patch that needs to be applied? or a BIOS setting not quite
right? or overclocking? or miss matched RAM or or or)

GIGO!

–
dd

14

After several further attempts with a completellz new iso download (MD5 checksum ok), a new disc (high quality this time) burned at x2 speed which all failed and the console screens being completelly dead at all stages, here what I have experienced:

  1. When checking the media installation (without touching the computer for over 3h) the green screen stays and would probably stay even more time. The disc reader stops blinking, so does the hard drive. Not sure wht could be wrong with the disc, I have tried several writing devices and disc times, …

  2. I also tried to installl the defauult software packages wihtout success.

After one of the setups win 7 didn’t want to boot → Error 22 but this is easy to fix (for whoever may have this issue):

  • Load with Win 7 boot disc inserted
  • When being asked for the languag press SHIFT + F10 → Console shows up
  • Type bootrec /fixboot and hit ENTER
  • Type bootrec /fixmbr and hit ENTER
  • Type bootrec /rebuildbcd and hit ENTER (maybe not even necessary)
  • Confirm to restart (remove the boot disc)
  1. After all this failling I defined textmode in the OpenSuse startup screen hitting F2 and setting TEXT MODE (as graphic) as I suspected that the GUI might be the issue

I have so be able to watch the installation process. It seems to hang / freeze at a specific point which means I cannot do anything at all, no command is accepted nor is there any further reaction on the disc reader nor the hard drive. The screen shows the folllowing:

Actions peformed:
Install symlinks in /lib/mkinitrd/setup
Install symlinks in /libmkinitrd/boot

Installing kernel-desktop-3.1.0-1.2.1.x86_64.rpm (installed size 144.00 MB.

Please fined below a screenshot:

SUSE Paste

While the percentage is different this time this seems logical to me due to only having selected the default software packages.

Not sure what this could be. Might even be hardware or BIOS related such as dd indicated ?
Cheers

15

Hi
In the install summary, where is the boot loader trying to install,
sdb?

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 3.0.34-0.7-default
up 0:43, 3 users, load average: 0.61, 0.55, 0.41
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

16

Bootloader is set to be installed to the mbr which resides on sda. Have not tried yet to install it in root which is installed on sdb

17

Ok, I will try the below options before I have to surrender (at least on this machine):

  1. Install the boot loader in /
  2. Run a Live CD in order to check partitions (su - and fdisk - l) as I believe this was asked in the beginning and IU have missed it. I will use a KDE Live CD as this is the GUI I want to install also
  3. Try to install openSUSE 11.4

*4) Update the BIOS. I write this in italic as I don’t like this idea and am not sure if I am gonna to do that. Why I don’t care about data loss (new computer so nothing on it yet) I don’t like the idea of messing with my BIOS as in my opinion this is nothing one should necessarily do if all works fine…, well all but Linux. So not sure whether I really wanna do that.

*I would really like to figure out why it doesn’t work. I have already read that my graphic card (Geforce GTX560 Ti, see above) seems to have some driver issues but this should not be an issue at kernel stage.
Even if it was only for knowing why. In the worst caase I would try to get OpenSUSE 12.1 installed on my laptop though I would have to copy all to the desktop PC and configure all over again.
Not sure I like it, especially after having seen that it is totally unclear whether Linux will work on that one either. I will let you know the outcome.

PS: In case anyone has any further ideas (as mentioned, data loss would not be an issue so recommendations may be drastic) please feel free to drop some lines.

Many thanks

18

On 07/02/2012 09:06 PM, Peter1Pan wrote:
> PS: In case anyone has any further ideas… please feel free to
> drop some lines.

if you buy hardware known to work with Linux you won’t these troubles…

on the other hand, if you buy hardware certified to work great with Win7
or 8 and there is no Penguin on the box it came in, then you just have
to be lucky…

it usually takes a little time for the Linux developers to figure out
what has to be done to get Windows hardware to work well with
Linux…and, you might be able to understand that neither Microsoft nor
the hardware makers who depend on folks to BUY a Windows computer are
really that interested in helping the Linux developers figure it out…

so, the newer your hardware the more risk you take when buying…and,
you might be forced to use Win8 a few months before Linux slides in
smoothly…

like it did on my current machine…it installed with no troubles and
everything works…

–
dd
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Hardware
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Software

19

Hey dd,
though I have to admit that your idea will probably not become my favorite one :wink: I suppose you are right.
I appreciate all the work being done with regards to development, especially on a non-commercial product, and also all the help received in this forum. Quite helpful for me, at least I learned quite a bit regarding the instalaltion process. Not bad, I learned something about Linux without having even used it. lol

After having tried to run a LiveCD for KDE that didn’t work either I pretty agree on this not being a software / installation issue and that probably this version won’t work on my machine.
You find my hardware config in my first message so anyone who reads this haveing the same issues may find this useful.
I think I can accept that and will try to install Linux on my old netbook which is an Acer Timeline 1810T which should work just fine. Guess I kinda like small netbooks for consoles better anyway

The only issue is that I can’t help asking myself why it doesn’t work. Maybe in some years I will know enough to figure that out and dive deep enough into detail to find out what ecxactly failed.
But for the moment I am far far (have I mentioned far yet?) away from that.

Anyway, overall Linux looks like something very interesting to me so this won’t stop me from using and learning it.

MANY THANKS again to all for trying to help a newbie making his first steps. At least I know now what I have to keep in mind for a clean (simple) install… fingers crossed :wink:

Cheers

20

On 2012-07-02 21:06, Peter1Pan wrote:
> -4) Update the BIOS. I write this in italic as I don’t like this idea
> and am not sure if I am gonna to do that. Why I don’t care about data
> loss (new computer so nothing on it yet) I don’t like the idea of
> messing with my BIOS as in my opinion this is nothing one should
> necessarily do if all works fine…, well all but Linux. So not sure
> whether I really wanna do that.

Your computer is an ASUS. They have a bad track record with Linux, I would
get something else if I could.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)