I was trying to install Opensuse 12.3 64-bit on my Dell Studio 1558, when I ran into problems with the installer. The installation progresses smoothly up to 93%, until ‘Saving Bootloader Configuration’, and then it gets stuck, no matter how long I wait. I’ve installed earlier versions of opensuse on the same machine, and other distros as well (Fedora,ubuntu,mint etc), but this kind of an installation error is happening for the first time.
My hard drive is MBR partitioned, with Windows and two Fedora installations. I tried to install opensuse on /dev/sda8, which is roughly 11 GB in size (it’s a logical partition inside the extended partition, and the last partition on the HDD). In the ‘Partition Setup’ during installation, I chose ‘Expert Partitioning’, and then opted to format /dev/sda8 as ext4 with mount point as / (There’s no swap partition). I chose to to install the bootloader on MBR (when I repeated the installation a second time, I chose the default - install BL on extended partition, but with same results).
The installation starts fine, the partition formats to ext4 successfully, root fs gets copied, and then after a couple of messages, I get this ‘Saving Bootloader Configuration’ message on the log window and after this, the installation just won’t progress. Even the Abort button does not work…
Please help
And by the way, I ran the live iso from a usb-stick, which I prepared using dd
dd if=/path_to_iso of=/dev/sdb
** I used of=/dev/sdb rather than of=/dev/sdb1. Could that be a problem??
I doubt if that works because:
a) The USB stick boots fine and installs the live system, thus I do not see what is wrong with it;
b) Because of the earlier dd there is no sdb1 any more on the USB stick.
This one does not boot. I’d reformatted my usb drive and partitioned /dev/sdb1 to fat32 before running dd, but when I try to boot the usb from my BIOS, I just get a blank screen. When I tried
set root='(hd1,msdos1)'
chainloader +1
from grub, I get a ‘isolinux corrupt or missing’ message and it just returns back to grub…
Tried it, with and without a new swap partition, but still stuck at the same point…
And this is the installation log…
Creating volume /dev/sda8
Setting type of partition /dev/sda8 to 82
Creating volume /dev/sda9
Formatting partition /dev/sda8 (1.25 GB) with swap
Formatting partition /dev/sda9 (9.57 GB) with ext4
Mounting /dev/sda8 to swap
Adding entry for mount point swap to /etc/fstab
Mounting /dev/sda9 to /
Adding entry for mount point / to /etc/fstab
Evaluating filesystems to copy...
Copying root filesystem...
Creating list of finish scripts to call...
Copy files to installed system
* Copying files to installed system...
* Moving to installed system...
Save configuration
* Setting up linker cache...
* Calling step live_save_config_finish...
* Saving default runlevel...
* Saving file system configuration...
* Enabling random number generator...
Install boot manager
* Saving bootloader configuration...
I even tried preparing the liveusb using the ImageWriter tool in Windows (SDB:Live USB stick - openSUSE Wiki); but i still get stuck at the same point. Looks like the issue may not be related to the usb/iso image.
Also look very close at the partition scheme and be sure it is going where you expect it to. When I install via a USB stick I noticed the default install want to go to the stick not the hard drive.
I finally gave up playing with liveusb and burnt a dvd. Still the same issue !!
Could it be something to do with the partitioning scheme? Say 10 GB is not large enough to fit the rootfs? But in that case, the installer would report this, wouldn’t it?
@Knurpht:
Will check your suggestion and update soon…
I have an ATI Radeon graphics card on my laptop, which heats up badly with open source drivers. AMD’s proprietary Catalyst drivers were good at handling the heating, but I’ve not been able to get them installed on fedora >=17, which I use right now. So I was thinking of moving to opensuse (which is, fortunately, one of the few distros officially supported by the catalyst driver)
With the 10G partition, I was just trying to have a trial run for a couple of weeks and get in touch with the distro, before completely moving into it…
Nope… that didn’t help. I deleted another partition on my hdd claiming around 30 GB and tried installation into this space, but that didn’t solve the problem either.
BTW, i installed it on virtualbox, and it is running fine. So I think we could rule out any issue with the ISO…
Got it installed on a primary partition. The installation went on fine without any problems; I didn’t even have to run the installer with any special/safe setting. Installed the roootfs on /dev/sda2 (35 GB, ext4) and used /dev/sda3 (5 GB) as swap; both are primary partitions.
So it looks like the issue basically is that opensuse 12.3 does not install inside the extended partition… (Should I file an official bug report on this ??)
boven:~ # fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1549f232
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 4209029 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 4209030 46154744 20972857+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 46154745 240974999 97410127+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 * 240975000 625137344 192081172+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 240975063 282920714 20972826 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 282920778 492633224 104856223+ 83 Linux
boven:~ # mount | grep sda
/dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
/dev/sda6 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
/dev/sda2 on /mnt/A type ext4 (ro,relatime,data=ordered)
/dev/sda3 on /mnt/A/home type ext4 (ro,relatime,data=ordered)
boven:~ #
As you can see in this installation / and /home are both on logical (and thus inside the extended) partitions. My suggestion is to do some more analisys before you file a bug report.
On 2013-04-24 09:56, navyendu wrote:
>
> Finally…
>
> Got it installed on a primary partition. The installation went on fine
> without any problems; I didn’t even have to run the installer with any
> special/safe setting. Installed the roootfs on /dev/sda2 (35 GB, ext4)
> and used /dev/sda3 (5 GB) as swap; both are primary partitions.
>
> So it looks like the issue basically is that opensuse 12.3 does not
> install inside the extended partition… (Should I file an official bug
> report on this ??)
I have not tried 12.3 in this situation, only a previous version.
But you have other Linuxes installed. In this situation, typically you
let the other Linux to control the initial booting, and you tell
openSUSE to install grub to its root partition only, and not to touch
neither MBR nor extended partition. Then you configure the other Linux
to load the secondary grub.
I have 12.3 installed just that way, and 11.4 as a main system. This
11.4 has grub installed into the extended partition, with a default,
windows created, MBR.
Both boot just fine.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
Did you mean the “Install bootloader on root partition” option under the bootloader section of the installation utility? (Plz correct me if I understood this part wrong). Well, I had tried almost all of the options in that page (Install bootloader on root_partition/extended_part/mbr), and none worked, as long as I was trying to install on a logical partition.
Before installing onto the primary partition, I had removed all other linux distros from my system, but the grub installation from the older fedora was still out there on the mbr. So maybe I can try to install opensuse again on a free logical partition (along with the current opensuse on /dev/sda3/) and see how it goes. Will update soon…
> Did you mean the “Install bootloader on root partition” option under
> the bootloader section of the installation utility? (Plz correct me if I
> understood this part wrong). Well, I had tried almost all of the options
> in that page (Install bootloader on root_partition/extended_part/mbr),
> and none worked, as long as I was trying to install on a logical
> partition.
>
> Before installing onto the primary partition, I had removed all other
> linux distros from my system, but the grub installation from the older
> fedora was still out there on the mbr. So maybe I can try to install
> opensuse again on a free logical partition (along with the current
> opensuse on /dev/sda3/) and see how it goes. Will update soon…
Notice that for installing the bootloader into root partition, it means
that it is something else, not grub, which boots the bootloader. If it
is a primary partition, that is the MBR code.
If it is a logical partition, then it is another grub, belonging to a
different installation, which boots it.
I told you this in the previous post.
But you did not say that you “had removed all other Linux distros from
my system”. In this case, obviously, openSUSE’s grub has to be on a
primary (the extended partition is itself a primary).
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
