I am having troubles with the new tumbleweed iso I just downloaded to make a fresh install of opensuse. I downloaded the DVD, not the network version. Yet, when I try to install it from scratch I get a window where I am asked to enter the network I am using. When I navigate back I have an option to specify the installation medium, the ISO is on my usb-stick, but there only the main drive is listed, not the usb stick. Unfortunately I also cannot specify a network, I set up my wlan always post installation, I don’t know how to do it before that. And anyway, why should I - exactly for that reason I chose the DVD and not the network version of the isos? Is this probably a bug of the ISO (I downloaded it twice and tried it again) or could this be due to some BIOS settings? I also had a strange behaviour when trying to install with an older opensuse iso (because the new tumbleweed iso was obviously not working for me): Normally it would suggest to shrink an existing windows partition, now I had to fiddle around in expert mode myself to do it but do not think that grub will then also be able to boot into windows. I also had no option to resize it, only to format it completely. Could this be BIOS related? Why should opensuse suddenly not recognize a windows partition and suggesting an appropriate partitioning to install linux alongside windows?
Btw: I have been installing opensuse many times successfully, also in expert mode to resize the partitions to my needs. But that network related issue never occurred to me before. What windows is concerned I cannot tell whether this is a new issue, I just read in a linux magazine that opensuse would recognize it and try to resize its partition and have seen on some graphics what the partitioner’s suggestion should look like but didn’t on my system. So far I just had a single linux partition on the laptop but some programs not available for Linux now force me to set up a dual-boot system. I was going for tumbleweed because leap has an outdated gnome version, and if I install from scratch anyway I would prefer the latest gnome desktop.
I haven’t tried avoiding the network recently. I guess I should test that again.
Normally, the DVD installer will prompt about the network if it is not able to auto-configure a connection. You can use that to configure network details for the installed system, though it will configure Wicked and not NetworkManager, but it might setup your system to use NetworkManager any (particulary if it is a laptop).
You should be able to skip that part of the installation. Off the top of my head, I don’t remember what the option is to skip, but it is obvious enough. Perhaps it is just clicking “Finish” or “Next” without actually configuring anything.
But it has been a while since I last tried that, so maybe it’s time for me to try it again.
Thanks a lot! Unfortunately the input of a network source was not optional in this case, I couldn’t get around by just clicking “Next” or the like… The Gnome-Tumbleweed-Live-Image on the other hand didn’t have this particular problem but just froze before getting to the installation. I have no idea what’s wrong with the ISOs and whether I am the only one having such issues with them but reading a bit in forums like these I get the feeling that I am not. I have also been trying to write the ISOs to USB stick by different programs once from Linux and once from Windows and then the opensuse-installation process freezes at a similar but slightly different step during the installation. Some people report similar problems and believe writing ISOs to DVD-ROMs is more stable than to USB flash memory. Anyway I solved this problem by making an online upgrade from opensuse13.2 to tumbleweed. Not what I wanted originally, but it worked.
I’ve just finished a clean install of Tumbleweed snapshot 20151118, using the DVD installer.
I installed with no ethernet cable plugged in. On the network configuration screen, I clicked “Next” without configuring anything.
The install went well. Since it was a laptop, it defaulted to using NetworkManager. Once in KDE, I configure a WiFi connection. But that was not needed for the install.
Which is likely the root cause. Installer cannot find installation files on local device and so asks you about remote location. How exactly did you create USB stick? Did you simply copy ISO as a file on it? What do you boot from?
I downloaded the 20151116 and 20151118 version of the DVD installer and wrote each image to an 8 GB USB thumb drive with SUSE Studio imagewriter. With both versions the installer opened an ncurses form asking for SSID and then passphrase with no way I could see to get past without entering a valid access point. During the install, I opened a TTY and found that the USB installer only showed as /dev/sdb – no partitions. The installer does work, but downloads everything from the internet.
On a regular computer, looking at the USB with fdisk it shows 1 efi fat partion 3.5M and 1 hidden HPFS/NTFS partition 4.3G. I can manually mount the second partition and all of the packages can be seen at suse/x86_64/ so I don’t understand why it doesn’t use them.
Weird. The NET installer uses an ncurses configuration screen at that point. But the DVD installer normally uses Xwindows for configuring the network, unless you specified command line install at the boot prompt.
I was able to get past the network configuration by clicking “Next” without configuring anything. See my recent blog post on this (with the 20151118 snapshot).
During the install, I opened a TTY and found that the USB installer only showed as /dev/sdb – no partitions. The installer does work, but downloads everything from the internet.
That’s what I would expect for the 32-bit NET installer.
On a regular computer, looking at the USB with fdisk it shows 1 efi fat partion 3.5M and 1 hidden HPFS/NTFS partition 4.3G.
That’s about right for the 64-bit DVD installer. You mention “regular computer” so I am wondering what kind of non-regular-computer that you used the first time.
I can manually mount the second partition and all of the packages can be seen at suse/x86_64/ so I don’t understand why it doesn’t use them.
[QUOTE=chiefpete;2740220]During the install, I opened a TTY and found that the USB installer only showed as /dev/sdb – no partitions. /QUOTE]
I remember recent discussion on opensuse mailing list about similar issue, it turned out device claimed compatibly with uas driver instead of traditional usb-storage and that did not work.
In any case it sounds like issue specific to combination of your system and USB stick. Do you have another system to test this USB stick on? Do you have another USB stick to test on this system? Try to plug in any other stick when you are in terminal again - is it detected properly (with partitions)? Could you upload dmesg output from installer to http://susepaste.org/?
I have exactly the same issue than the one reported by suse_fan when I try to install tumbleweed on my laptop.
I used this same flash drive on my desktop PC and it works !
Another weird thing on my laptop : when I try to install Leap, it boots first on a command line screen. If I type the command exit, I then get the grub menu and the installation can proceed.
Your Desktop probably has an ethernet connection. The installer was able to initialize that with DHCP, so did not present the network configuration screen.
However, you can skip the network configuration anyway. Just click “Next” without configuring anything on that screen.
Another weird thing on my laptop : when I try to install Leap, it boots first on a command line screen. If I type the command exit, I then get the grub menu and the installation can proceed.
That, I have not seen. It is perhaps your UEFI firmware. The UEFI support for Leap is a bit shaky, which affects some hardware. There are ongoing bugs waiting resolution.
sorry for my late answer, I have had to focus on other things in priority.
Unfortunately, I cannot skip the network configuration. When I reach that point, I get a small X-window pop-up requesting a SSID. I don’t have a Next button…
At the end, I can get an X-window with the Install option. However, after clicking on it, I get a window requesting to locate the installation media (CD/DVD, network or HDD) ; none will work.
The same flash drive used on my desktop PC works, even with the ethernet cable disconnected… Weird, indeed ?
There is something about your hardware that is confusing the installer.
If you were using a USB3 port, then try plugging in the USB to a USB2 port – or vice versa.
Hmm, I seem to remember having a similar problem with a really old computer. That computer came only with USB1, but a USB2 card had been added. I could boot the installer with USB2, but it could not find the installation media. If I did everything with USB1, it worked.
The same flash drive used on my desktop PC works, even with the ethernet cable disconnected… Weird, indeed ?
Yes, that’s normal. So there is something unusual happening with the other computer.
Well, then, I’m trapped.
I have only one USB port which is a USB3 one. It is not a very old computer though ; it is an Asus T300LA.
I just tried on an older laptop and got the same issue. I will try with a USB2 flash drive and I will get hold of one.
I’m having the same issue with the 20151221 snapshot. I downloaded the full Tumbleweed 20151221 DVD ISO and used dd to copy it over to my USB key, checking the SHA-256 hash to make sure it matches. I then booted in UEFI mode as I have a UEFI capable motherboard. Linuxrc goes through the normal hardware probing process, then proceeds into the linuxrc 5.0.63 ncurses dialogue after the last portion of the linuxrc process shown below:
Loading basic drivers... ok
Starting hardware detection... ok
(If a driver is not working for you, try booting with brokenmodules=driver_name.)
Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 2 port SATA IDE Controller
drivers: ata pixx*, ata_generic, pata_acpi
Activating usb devices... ok
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 V1.0
drivers: usbhid*
PNY Flash Drive
drivers: uas, usb_storage*
Qualcomm Atheros AR9227 Wireless Network Adapter
drivers: ath9k*
Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
drivers: r8169*
enp7s0: network config created
Sending DHCP request to enp7s0...
no/Incomplete answer
It hangs for about 15 seconds at “Sending DHCP request to enp7s0…”, then “no/Incomplete answer” flashes briefly on the screen. Once in the linuxrc ncurses screen, it asks for the network SSID but offers no list of networks found. I type in the SSID, then a WLAN authentication dialogue box comes up. Next, a dialogue box pops up asking me for the wireless network password. After entering in my Wi-Fi password, it successfully negotiates a network connection and loads the installation system (parts 1 through 5) over the network. After this point, the XWindows-based YaST2 installer loads and I’m able to install Tumbleweed via network link.
This issue has existed for about the last month or two (give or take) of Tumbleweed snapshots. I don’t have an Ethernet cable plugged into my desktop PC as I use a wireless network card for a network connection. Linuxrc wants to force a network install even though the image on the USB key is the full DVD image. This appears to be a bug recently introduced, as I’ve installed many Tumbleweed images on this specific machine without this issue. To sum it up, a network install is forced when that isn’t what should be happening.
Is there a way to force YaST2 to not do a network install and read the installation files from the USB key? I tried pointing the installation location to my USB key in the linuxrc ncurses screen after going back a few screens, backing out of the wireless network config dialogue, but it threw an error (I can’t recall off the top of my head the exact error message). I saved the YaST2 logs to a USB key, but I’m now realizing that it may be the linuxrc logs which may be of pertinence. If nobody has opened a bug report on this yet, I can do so or contribute to an already existing report.
Also, the openSUSE-Leap-42.1-DVD-x86_64.iso image copied to the same USB key i’m using for the Tumbleweed install doesn’t cause this problem. And this is on the same machine; the same USB port.