Installation woes (with different distros)

[kara-anne]

<sigh> I really, really don't want to go back to XP ...

Let me explain. The machine I've been working on had a critical file in /windows crap itself after one of those 'silent' updates - the one where you get a pop-up saying 'Please restart your machine.' so you do. Now, as a (unfortunately former - wonderful economy, isn't it?) network admin, I was careful, didn't go to questionable sites, kept my AV and OS up to date, etc. I was a good girl ... then the system file became corrupted, and I couldn't get to the repair stage, so I said 'heck with this', and booted the Live CD of PCLOS 2011.6 to play with it.

Okay, little bit different than fedora and Red Hat, but that's OK, I'll cheerfully admit to being a Linux NooB. I confess that the extra drives pop-up (the one with the USB symbol next to the clock) wasn't showing my USB drives (even though they show as /dev/sdx in the partition manager), nor was a USB printer showing, but I got that resolved (I think).

I got my questions answered by reading the fora here, so I arranged my partitions the way I wanted them, then rebooted to do the actual install. However, the installer (Anaconda?) hung on the partition formatting for sdg1 (as in 30+ hours). After waiting I killed power, since there wasn't any data to save so I could start over.

I said 'heck with this' as hda1 had also taken 8+ hours to format (4096 MB, mounted as /boot) and tried to go through the Live CD installer. It will boot to the DVD drive, but hangs at the 'detecting hardware ...' part of the boot sequence. I then tried to install fedora 15 off a DVD and it's taking far too long. Now, given that I can't get to /etc/fstab for a proper capture, I'll just list the way the partitions are SUPPOSED to be.

/hda1 * (startable) 4096 MB /boot (ext4)
/hda2 (balance of 160 GB drive) / (ext4)
/hdb1 (250MB zip drive) (vfat)
/hdc1 10 GB IBM /swap (swap)
/hdd (DVD drive)
/hde1 /home (Maxtor 100 GB backup drive in a portable case) (ntfs) - this is my 'grab n' go' backup drive)

I want to have a larger backup drive than my collection of USB sticks as I live in 'hurricane country' (Florida) so I can evacuate on a few minutes' notice. However, the installation is hanging at the 'detecting hardware' stage on both the PCLOS and the fedora installs. Since this hardware was working under both the XP installation and the live CD, I don't think it's bad hardware. If I can get to a CLI, any suggestions?

Thanks,
Kara

PS: when did /hdx become /sdx? I don't have any SCSI hardware in the machine in question.

[Bald Brick]

PS: when did /hdx become /sdx?

With kernel version 2.6.20, I think. The hd<whatever> designations don't exist anymore.

[scoundrel]

I would remove all usb devices not needed and then install and let the installer take over whole hard drive.... 10gb swap ??  crazy    then after you have installed ..do a complete update ..reboot and then plug in your usb drives and format and such with PCC local disc ..

[Old-Polack]

/hda1 * (startable) 4096 MB /boot (ext4)
/hda2 (balance of 160 GB drive) / (ext4)
/hdb1 (250MB zip drive) (vfat)
/hdc1 10 GB IBM /swap (swap)
/hdd (DVD drive)
/hde1 /home (Maxtor 100 GB backup drive in a portable case) (ntfs) - this is my 'grab n' go' backup drive)

If you'll pardon the expression, this is nuts. A boot partition for a single installation shouldn't need to be more than 100 MB, and for the most part is unnecessary at all. Your / partition needn't be larger than 20 GB if you have a separate /home partition. With a 160 GB hard drive you have room for your swap partition, /boot partition, / partition and a generous /home partition all on one drive. Don't be scattering them all over the place when it's not needed, nor desirable.

You can't have your 100 GB drive mounting on /home especially with an NTFS filesystem. Your /home directory is where your normal users personal directories are. You can mount a separate partition on /home to keep those personal directories intact when doing re-installations, but the filesystem needs to be a native Linux filesystem, not NTFS. As a backup drive, it can be mounted either in /media, if you let it be auto mounted, or /mnt/<whatever>, if you prefer manually mounting it only when needed.

If you intend to use suspend or hibernate, your swap partition is recommended to be twice the size of physical RAM. If you don't intend to use either, it can be the same size as physical RAM or less, depending on how you use the machine. The more physical RAM you have, the less likely it is you will actually use the swap partition.

[AS]

Hi Kara,

I said 'heck with this' as hda1 had also taken 8+ hours to format (4096 MB, mounted as /boot)

 

When you format your partition and when asked to check for badblocks, you ticked the box to enable the check ?
If yes, most likely this is the cause of such long times. Avoid at all the check for badblocks. Modern SATA disk do have automatic bad sector reallocation features, when the spare sectors are exhausted you may want to replace the disk. 

AS

[kara-anne]

Thanks for replying, everyone!

This is the same hardware that the machine had when it was an XP machine. The only thing I've added is the Maxtor 100 GB drive in a USB external case that I mentioned is my 'boogie' drive - as in one drive that I grab when I need to 'boogie on down the road' in the event of a hurricane. However, that's something that can be done later - I've got so much older hardware (I'm a packrat!) that it seems a shame not to use a perfectly good hard drive.

as: Yep, the bad blocks make sense. I figured that with all the fighting I've done with this machine (Windows died the evening of August 11th), there might have been some physical damage, so better to check. BTW, these are eIDE drives, not SATA.

old-polack #0.0:  The recommended size for /boot was 188MB, and since I had the room, I figured I'd allow room for expansion. I had initially set the size at 1024MB, and it wasn't booting, so I figured it needed more room for some arcane reason (temp files or ram disk, maybe). I dunno, I'm a NooB, remember? <grin> Now, looking around the fora, I think it might have been my change of the first boot device from CD to floppy. By the way, after it successfully (Please, Allah, please!) boots from hard disk, do I need to reinsert the CD?

old-polack #1.0: My RAM is 1.5 GB (not much these days, I know, but this is an AMD Athalon 900 dating from around 2000 or so (at least that's what the BIOS is showing). As such, this is probably the most modern machine I've rebuilt out of my collection of spare parts (which includes an MFM drive and my firewall, a 486dx2-66 running Red Hat). As I've got to save up for my property taxes, any spare funds go toward paying off my credit cards and such (I did mention this was a wonderful economy, didn't I?), so I can't afford new hardware.

old-polack #1.1: Therefore, my reasoning to use a larger /swap partition. The combination of older processor, limited ram, and a larger /swap gave decent performance (at least in XP). I also have a habit of downloading things that look 'interesting', including large .iso files. I'm not much into the music and videos (I don't even have an iPod!) and my cell phone is just that - a phone. Call me an old-fashioned type of girl ... (That explains why I'm still using a zip drive and Kodachrome!) 

What vi has as my copy of /etc/fstab:
# Entry for /dev/sda2 :
UUID=58621c56-ed71-4f5e-9383-90a1812695dd / ext4 defaults 1 1
D=58621c56-ed71-4f5e-9383-90a1812695dd / ext4 defaults 1 1
# Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=c2566ece-a8ce-4276-868a-f15ea7e0a840 /boot ext4 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0

What I don't see is the * that indicates a startable partition. This is the contents of /boot: 
[guest@localhost boot]$ ls
boot.backup.sda                 kernel.h-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs
config@                         memtest-4.20
config-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs      message-graphic
gfxmenu*                        System.map@
grub/                           System.map-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs
initrd-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs.img  us.klt
initrd.img@                     vmlinuz@
kernel.h@                       vmlinuz-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs
[guest@localhost boot]$

So do y'all think this thing will finally work? I'm getting kinda tired of going to the public library to use their machines and get online. Anything else you'd need to see?

Thanks in advance!
Kara

[Old-Polack]

old-polack #0.0:  The recommended size for /boot was 188MB, and since I had the room, I figured I'd allow room for expansion. I had initially set the size at 1024MB, and it wasn't booting, so I figured it needed more room for some arcane reason (temp files or ram disk, maybe). I dunno, I'm a NooB, remember? <grin> Now, looking around the fora, I think it might have been my change of the first boot device from CD to floppy. By the way, after it successfully (Please, Allah, please!) boots from hard disk, do I need to reinsert the CD?

old-polack #1.0: My RAM is 1.5 GB (not much these days, I know, but this is an AMD Athalon 900 dating from around 2000 or so (at least that's what the BIOS is showing). As such, this is probably the most modern machine I've rebuilt out of my collection of spare parts (which includes an MFM drive and my firewall, a 486dx2-66 running Red Hat). As I've got to save up for my property taxes, any spare funds go toward paying off my credit cards and such (I did mention this was a wonderful economy, didn't I?), so I can't afford new hardware.

old-polack #1.1: Therefore, my reasoning to use a larger /swap partition. The combination of older processor, limited ram, and a larger /swap gave decent performance (at least in XP). I also have a habit of downloading things that look 'interesting', including large .iso files. I'm not much into the music and videos (I don't even have an iPod!) and my cell phone is just that - a phone. Call me an old-fashioned type of girl ... (That explains why I'm still using a zip drive and Kodachrome!)  

What I don't see is the * that indicates a startable partition. This is the contents of /boot:  
[guest@localhost boot]$ ls
boot.backup.sda                 kernel.h-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs
config@                         memtest-4.20
config-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs      message-graphic
gfxmenu*                        System.map@
grub/                           System.map-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs
initrd-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs.img  us.klt
initrd.img@                     vmlinuz@
kernel.h@                       vmlinuz-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs
[guest@localhost boot]$

#0:0 Recommended by who? Certainly not PCLinuxOS. We don't recommend a boot partition at all. Here is a screen shot of my /boot directory (on the / partition) Properties. Note the actual size used.



I do in fact have a boot partition, but not in the sense that you are using it. I boot 10 Linux installations presently on this machine, so my boot partition has copies of each of the /boot directories from each installation, renamed for the actual OS installed. The partition is not mounted on any installation, it only serves as a backup partition from which I can boot any of the installations if the contents of any of the /boot directories on the respective / partitions gets corrupted. Being as I do testing of all the various kernels available for each installation, I have multiple kernels in each of the copied /boot directories, and with all of that going on, when I mount the partition on /mnt/boot, right click on the /mnt/boot directory, and choose Properties, I get this;



The total size of my boot partition, for 10 installations, is ~300 MB and still has 20% free.

#1:0 #1.2 Windows and Linux use RAM in a totally different manner. Having an enormous swap will gain you nothing, waste a lot of hard drive space, and probably slow your machine to a crawl if more than a few hundred MB are added to swap, considering both your CPU and physical RAM. Swap is for emergency use only, as far as Linux is concerned, used as a place to store data to free RAM for a process procedure, if RAM runs short, to prevent the process from dying, or freezing the system. Normally swap is not used at all, as long as there is enough RAM for normal functioning. 1.5 GB RAM should be fine. If you do not intend to hibernate your system, a swap partition equal to RAM is more than enough. If you do think you will use hibernate, then 3 GB would be the max you would need.

Seriously, you can't make valid decisions concerning a Linux system based on how Windows does things. Linux is completely different under the hood. I normally have 4 GB physical RAM in this machine, and have a swap partition of 8 GB to allow me to hibernate with complete safety. I forgot I'd removed one of the 2 GB ram sticks while running memtest, so for the last two days have been running with only 2 GB physical RAM. I never even noticed until I ran top. Still I get these results from top;

[root@fatman ~]# top

Code:

top - 19:53:35 up 1 day, 16:59, 10 users,  load average: 0.05, 0.12, 0.13
Tasks: 197 total,   1 running, 193 sleeping,   0 stopped,   3 zombie
Cpu(s):  9.1%us,  2.8%sy,  0.0%ni, 87.4%id,  0.7%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   2057856k total,  1957428k used,   100428k free,    16340k buffers
Swap:  8096756k total,        0k used,  8096756k free,   387304k cached        <-- Note: 0k used

Running with only half my usual RAM, swap remains unused after almost 2 days.

As to not seeing a partition flagged as bootable, that's a Windows thing, unused by Linux. From my machine, with 10 bootable installations at present;

[root@fatman ~]# fdisk -l -u=cylinders

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0000d21c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1          39      313236   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              40        1047     8096760   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3            1048        7127    48837600   83  Linux
/dev/sda4            7128      121601   919512405    5  Extended
/dev/sda5            7128       20500   107418591   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           20501       33267   102550896   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           33268       37158    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           37159       41049    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda9           41050       44940    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda10          44941       48831    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda11          48832       61886   104864256   83  Linux
/dev/sda12          61887      101050   314584798+  83  Linux
/dev/sda13         101051      104942    31262458+  83  Linux
/dev/sda14         104943      108893    31736376   83  Linux
/dev/sda15         108894      113071    33559753+  83  Linux
/dev/sda16         113072      117641    36700160   83  Linux
/dev/sda17         117641      121601    31813992+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2db1883a

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1               1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sdc2              14         761     6008310   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdc3             762        4497    30009420   83  Linux
/dev/sdc4            4498       91201   696449880    5  Extended
/dev/sdc5            4498       16947   100004593+  83  Linux
/dev/sdc6           16948       41750   199230066   83  Linux
/dev/sdc7           41751       45520    30282493+  83  Linux
/dev/sdc8           45521       50506    40050013+  83  Linux
/dev/sdc9           50507       65096   117194143+  83  Linux
/dev/sdc10          65097       79686   117194143+  83  Linux
/dev/sdc11          79687       91201    92494206   83  Linux

Not a boot flag in sight... no Windows installations.

[Neal ManBear]

<sigh> I really, really don't want to go back to XP ...

You don't have to go back to it, unless you want to go back to it.

Let me explain. The machine I've been working on had a critical file in /windows crap itself after one of those 'silent' updates - the one where you get a pop-up saying 'Please restart your machine.' so you do. Now, as a (unfortunately former - wonderful economy, isn't it?) network admin, I was careful, didn't go to questionable sites, kept my AV and OS up to date, etc. I was a good girl ... then the system file became corrupted, and I couldn't get to the repair stage, so I said 'heck with this', and booted the Live CD of PCLOS 2011.6 to play with it.

Unfortunately many people have experienced problems due to updates from MS.      
Fortunately there is an alternative.

Okay, little bit different than fedora and Red Hat, but that's OK, I'll cheerfully admit to being a Linux NooB. I confess that the extra drives pop-up (the one with the USB symbol next to the clock) wasn't showing my USB drives (even though they show as /dev/sdx in the partition manager), nor was a USB printer showing, but I got that resolved (I think).

I got my questions answered by reading the fora here, so I arranged my partitions the way I wanted them, then rebooted to do the actual install. However, the installer (Anaconda?) hung on the partition formatting for sdg1 (as in 30+ hours). After waiting I killed power, since there wasn't any data to save so I could start over.

Our installer is draklive-install. I've never used it with any externals attached. My thinking is that as I'm wanting to install to the HDD, I don't need to have external 'distractions.' USB sticks/drives, etc can be formatted, if need be, after installation.
Plainly said, when I'm installing the system, I focus on installing the system and not on peripherals.

I said 'heck with this' as hda1 had also taken 8+ hours to format (4096 MB, mounted as /boot) and tried to go through the Live CD installer. It will boot to the DVD drive, but hangs at the 'detecting hardware ...' part of the boot sequence. I then tried to install fedora 15 off a DVD and it's taking far too long. Now, given that I can't get to /etc/fstab for a proper capture, I'll just list the way the partitions are SUPPOSED to be.

/hda1 * (startable) 4096 MB /boot (ext4)
/hda2 (balance of 160 GB drive) / (ext4)
/hdb1 (250MB zip drive) (vfat)
/hdc1 10 GB IBM /swap (swap)
/hdd (DVD drive)
/hde1 /home (Maxtor 100 GB backup drive in a portable case) (ntfs) - this is my 'grab n' go' backup drive)

A partitioning scheme doesn't need to be complex/complicated. You can install to a monolithic partition (/), if you keep your personal files on a /data or /back-up partition. Or if you prefer, you can have a separate /home partition. So then, you would need a / (root) partition, possibly a /home partition, a swap partition (size already discussed in this thread) and, if needed/desired, a back-up or data partition. If you are using an external drive for your data/back-up, you may not want an internal partition for that.

On a 160GB HDD, I would use ---     
/dev/sda0   /  ~30GB  formatted as ext4  ('/' would contain the files for '/boot')
/dev/sda1   /swap  1.5 or 3GB (depending on need)     
/dev/sda2   /home  30 to 50GB (as desired)   formatted as ext4
/dev/sda3   /extended partition (remainder of drive)     
     /dev/sda5 (the first partition on an extended partition is always '5.')  /data (remainder of drive)  formatted as ext4

I want to have a larger backup drive than my collection of USB sticks as I live in 'hurricane country' (Florida) so I can evacuate on a few minutes' notice. However, the installation is hanging at the 'detecting hardware' stage on both the PCLOS and the fedora installs. Since this hardware was working under both the XP installation and the live CD, I don't think it's bad hardware. If I can get to a CLI, any suggestions?

Thanks,
Kara

PS: when did /hdx become /sdx? I don't have any SCSI hardware in the machine in question.

[kara-anne]

Okay, took the advice of y'all, and it still doesn't boot!
/etc/fstab:
/dev/root / rootfs defaults 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
And while this isn't what I planned out, these are my partitions:
[root@localhost guest]# fdisk -l -u=cylinders

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 310101 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000843c8

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *             1       60952    30719776+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2           60953      310101   125571096    5  Extended
/dev/sda5           60953       69265     4189720+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           69266      310101   121381312+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 10.1 GB, 10141286400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1232 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x967c967c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *             1        1232     9896008+   b  W95 FAT32
[root@localhost guest]#
I get the grub splash screen, it loads inirtd, then hangs on a black screen. Should I copy any of these?
[root@localhost guest]# cd /boot
[root@localhost boot]# ls
boot.backup.sda             initrd-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs.img  memtest-4.20                    vmlinuz@
config@                     initrd.img@                     message-graphic                 vmlinuz-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs
config-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs  initrd.img.old                  System.map@
gfxmenu*                    kernel.h@                       System.map-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs
grub/                       kernel.h-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs    us.klt
[root@localhost boot]# cd grub
[root@localhost grub]# ls
device.map         e2fs_stage1_5  install.sh*       jfs_stage1_5       splash.xpm.gz  stage2_eltorito  xfs_stage1_5
device.map.backup  fat_stage1_5   install.sh.old*   minix_stage1_5     stage1         ufs2_stage1_5
device.map.old     ffs_stage1_5   iso9660_stage1_5  reiserfs_stage1_5  stage2         vstafs_stage1_5
[root@localhost grub]#
Helllp!

[Bald Brick]

Okay, took the advice of y'all, and it still doesn't boot!
/etc/fstab:
/dev/root / rootfs defaults 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0

This is the /etc/fstab on your live CD. It doesn't tell us anything about how your install is set up on the hard drive. You have to look for the fstab on your installed setup. If you cant boot from the hard drive you have to mount the relevant partition somewhere. (Clicking it in the places panel in Dolphin or Konqueror will automount it in a folder under /media.)

And while this isn't what I planned out, these are my partitions:
[root@localhost guest]# fdisk -l -u=cylinders

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 310101 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000843c8

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *             1       60952    30719776+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2           60953      310101   125571096    5  Extended
/dev/sda5           60953       69265     4189720+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           69266      310101   121381312+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 10.1 GB, 10141286400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1232 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x967c967c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *             1        1232     9896008+   b  W95 FAT32
[root@localhost guest]#
I get the grub splash screen, it loads inirtd, then hangs on a black screen. Should I copy any of these?
[root@localhost guest]# cd /boot
[root@localhost boot]# ls
boot.backup.sda             initrd-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs.img  memtest-4.20                    vmlinuz@
config@                     initrd.img@                     message-graphic                 vmlinuz-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs
config-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs  initrd.img.old                  System.map@
gfxmenu*                    kernel.h@                       System.map-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs
grub/                       kernel.h-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs    us.klt
[root@localhost boot]# cd grub
[root@localhost grub]# ls
device.map         e2fs_stage1_5  install.sh*       jfs_stage1_5       splash.xpm.gz  stage2_eltorito  xfs_stage1_5
device.map.backup  fat_stage1_5   install.sh.old*   minix_stage1_5     stage1         ufs2_stage1_5
device.map.old     ffs_stage1_5   iso9660_stage1_5  reiserfs_stage1_5  stage2         vstafs_stage1_5
[root@localhost grub]#
Helllp!