Thread: [Devil-linux-develop] New 1.3 testing release.

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I compiled the latest 1.3-beta last night with the i686 server options
and uploaded it to the DL FTP server for people to test:

ftp://ftp.devil-linux.org/pub/devel/testing/

 - BS

Hi,

Bruce Smith <bw...@ar...> writes:

> I compiled the latest 1.3-beta last night with the i686 server options
> and uploaded it to the DL FTP server for people to test:

The first problem I ran into: when I boot the test release on a PC
without etc.tar.bz2 (with an existing CentOS installation on its hard
disk, but this should not come into play), the boot hangs seemingly
forever when trying to load the config from /dev/fd0 (I waited for
10-15 minutes before rebooting). It boots correctly if I insert a USB
pen drive with an etc.tar.bz2 file from a box running Devil 1.2.x.

I have not been able to test it further yet.

-- 
Arnaud

On Mon, November 5, 2007 05:49, Arnaud Gomes-do-Vale wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> Bruce Smith <bw...@ar...> writes:
>
>
>> I compiled the latest 1.3-beta last night with the i686 server options
>> and uploaded it to the DL FTP server for people to test:
>
> The first problem I ran into: when I boot the test release on a PC
> without etc.tar.bz2 (with an existing CentOS installation on its hard disk,
> but this should not come into play), the boot hangs seemingly forever when
> trying to load the config from /dev/fd0 (I waited for 10-15 minutes before
> rebooting). It boots correctly if I insert a USB pen drive with an
> etc.tar.bz2 file from a box running Devil 1.2.x.
>
> I have not been able to test it further yet.

Did you have a floppy in the drive? If yes, was it formated?

-- 

Regards
  Heiko Zuerker
  http://www.devil-linux.org

"Heiko Zuerker" <he...@zu...> writes:

>> The first problem I ran into: when I boot the test release on a PC
>> without etc.tar.bz2 (with an existing CentOS installation on its hard disk,
>> but this should not come into play), the boot hangs seemingly forever when
>> trying to load the config from /dev/fd0 (I waited for 10-15 minutes before
>> rebooting). It boots correctly if I insert a USB pen drive with an
>> etc.tar.bz2 file from a box running Devil 1.2.x.
>
> Did you have a floppy in the drive? If yes, was it formated?

No. I am not even sure the floppy drive still works, all I know is
that it is in the box.

-- 
Arnaud

On Mon, November 5, 2007 09:51, Arnaud Gomes-do-Vale wrote:
> "Heiko Zuerker" <he...@zu...> writes:
>
>
>>> The first problem I ran into: when I boot the test release on a PC
>>> without etc.tar.bz2 (with an existing CentOS installation on its hard
>>> disk, but this should not come into play), the boot hangs seemingly
>>> forever when trying to load the config from /dev/fd0 (I waited for
>>> 10-15 minutes before
>>> rebooting). It boots correctly if I insert a USB pen drive with an
>>> etc.tar.bz2 file from a box running Devil 1.2.x.
>>
>> Did you have a floppy in the drive? If yes, was it formated?
>>
>
> No. I am not even sure the floppy drive still works, all I know is
> that it is in the box.

OK.
Did anybody test the 1.3 boot with a floppy disk on real hardware (it
works on my vmware server)?

-- 

Regards
  Heiko Zuerker
  http://www.devil-linux.org

> >>> The first problem I ran into: when I boot the test release on a PC
> >>> without etc.tar.bz2 (with an existing CentOS installation on its hard
> >>> disk, but this should not come into play), the boot hangs seemingly
> >>> forever when trying to load the config from /dev/fd0 (I waited for
> >>> 10-15 minutes before
> >>> rebooting). It boots correctly if I insert a USB pen drive with an
> >>> etc.tar.bz2 file from a box running Devil 1.2.x.
> >>
> >> Did you have a floppy in the drive? If yes, was it formated?
> >>
> >
> > No. I am not even sure the floppy drive still works, all I know is
> > that it is in the box.
> 
> OK.
> Did anybody test the 1.3 boot with a floppy disk on real hardware (it
> works on my vmware server)?

I used the same ISO that I uploaded to the DL FTP site on two real PC's.
One was a 1Ghz box, the other is a 933Mhz box.  Both have floppy drives
and IDE hard drives.  They both also have a floppy drive, although I'm
using a USB flash drive to save my configs.  I didn't have any problems
creating a new config on my USB, and it loads fine after it was created.

I actually put the 933Mhz box running DL 1.3 into production last Friday
running a firewall and LAMP server at work.

For a limited time, I have still the 1Ghz box available for testing, if
you have anything specific you'd like me to try.

 - BS

On Mon, November 5, 2007 10:38, Bruce Smith wrote:
>>>>> The first problem I ran into: when I boot the test release on a
>>>>> PC
>>>>> without etc.tar.bz2 (with an existing CentOS installation on its
>>>>> hard disk, but this should not come into play), the boot hangs
>>>>> seemingly forever when trying to load the config from /dev/fd0 (I
>>>>> waited for 10-15 minutes before
>>>>> rebooting). It boots correctly if I insert a USB pen drive with an
>>>>>  etc.tar.bz2 file from a box running Devil 1.2.x.
>>>>
>>>> Did you have a floppy in the drive? If yes, was it formated?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> No. I am not even sure the floppy drive still works, all I know is
>>> that it is in the box.
>>
>> OK.
>> Did anybody test the 1.3 boot with a floppy disk on real hardware (it
>> works on my vmware server)?
>
> I used the same ISO that I uploaded to the DL FTP site on two real PC's.
> One was a 1Ghz box, the other is a 933Mhz box.  Both have floppy drives
> and IDE hard drives.  They both also have a floppy drive, although I'm
> using a USB flash drive to save my configs.  I didn't have any problems
> creating a new config on my USB, and it loads fine after it was created.
>
> I actually put the 933Mhz box running DL 1.3 into production last Friday
> running a firewall and LAMP server at work.
>
> For a limited time, I have still the 1Ghz box available for testing, if
> you have anything specific you'd like me to try.

Try using the floppy for the config media, just to confirm that it works.

-- 

Regards
  Heiko Zuerker
  http://www.devil-linux.org

> >>>>> The first problem I ran into: when I boot the test release on a
> >>>>> PC
> >>>>> without etc.tar.bz2 (with an existing CentOS installation on its
> >>>>> hard disk, but this should not come into play), the boot hangs
> >>>>> seemingly forever when trying to load the config from /dev/fd0 (I
> >>>>> waited for 10-15 minutes before
> >>>>> rebooting). It boots correctly if I insert a USB pen drive with an
> >>>>>  etc.tar.bz2 file from a box running Devil 1.2.x.
> >>>>
> >>>> Did you have a floppy in the drive? If yes, was it formated?
> >>>
> >>> No. I am not even sure the floppy drive still works, all I know is
> >>> that it is in the box.
> >>
> >> OK.
> >> Did anybody test the 1.3 boot with a floppy disk on real hardware (it
> >> works on my vmware server)?
> >
> > I used the same ISO that I uploaded to the DL FTP site on two real PC's.
> > One was a 1Ghz box, the other is a 933Mhz box.  Both have floppy drives
> > and IDE hard drives.  They both also have a floppy drive, although I'm
> > using a USB flash drive to save my configs.  I didn't have any problems
> > creating a new config on my USB, and it loads fine after it was created.
> >
> > I actually put the 933Mhz box running DL 1.3 into production last Friday
> > running a firewall and LAMP server at work.
> >
> > For a limited time, I have still the 1Ghz box available for testing, if
> > you have anything specific you'd like me to try.
> 
> Try using the floppy for the config media, just to confirm that it works.

I tried it, and it works fine for me.

I started out with a blank floppy (no USB drive), and it found and wrote
the new config to floppy.  Then I rebooted, and it found and loaded the
config without a problem.

The thing I've found with floppies is they are very unreliable.  I
actually had to find a different machine because two of the three
machines I tried, the floppy drive didn't work.  And there is always the
high rate of media failure problems.  Perhaps the original poster is
having a related problem?

 - BS

Bruce Smith <bw...@ar...> writes:

> The thing I've found with floppies is they are very unreliable.  I
> actually had to find a different machine because two of the three
> machines I tried, the floppy drive didn't work.  And there is always the
> high rate of media failure problems.  Perhaps the original poster is
> having a related problem?

I didn't have a floppy in the drive, and AFAIR the drive light stayed
off. I will try to find out more tomorrow; at the moment, as Devil
issues proper seem to have been ruled out, I suspect either broken or
badly supported hardware. More probably broken as the drive has
probably not been used in years.

-- 
Arnaud

On Mon, November 5, 2007 15:33, Arnaud Gomes-do-Vale wrote:
> Bruce Smith <bw...@ar...> writes:
>
>
>> The thing I've found with floppies is they are very unreliable.  I
>> actually had to find a different machine because two of the three
>> machines I tried, the floppy drive didn't work.  And there is always
>> the high rate of media failure problems.  Perhaps the original poster is
>>  having a related problem?
>
> I didn't have a floppy in the drive, and AFAIR the drive light stayed
> off. I will try to find out more tomorrow; at the moment, as Devil issues
> proper seem to have been ruled out, I suspect either broken or badly
> supported hardware. More probably broken as the drive has probably not
> been used in years.

Yeah my floppy drives get rarely used either.
The only 'floppy drives' I'm using are the virtual ones in VMWare. ;-)

-- 

Regards
  Heiko Zuerker
  http://www.devil-linux.org

I still have not found a floppy disk, but I tried another computer;
everything works as expected, that is the system booting properly
after lots of grumbling on screen because I don't have a configuration
media.

-- 
Arnaud

I noticed that it looks for configs on /dev/hd* drives before /dev/sd*
drives, which means it checks IDE hard drives before USB flash drives.

Is that the way it should work Heiko?

IIRC, it also checks for the config on the CD before external drives
too, which means you can't override a config burned on the CD.

 - BS

Quoting Bruce Smith <bw...@ar...>:

> I noticed that it looks for configs on /dev/hd* drives before /dev/sd*
> drives, which means it checks IDE hard drives before USB flash drives.
>
> Is that the way it should work Heiko?
>
> IIRC, it also checks for the config on the CD before external drives
> too, which means you can't override a config burned on the CD.

I'm open on what we check first, you can change it if you want.

-- 

Regards
   Heiko Zuerker
   http://www.devil-linux.org

> > I noticed that it looks for configs on /dev/hd* drives before /dev/sd*
> > drives, which means it checks IDE hard drives before USB flash drives.
> >
> > Is that the way it should work Heiko?
> >
> > IIRC, it also checks for the config on the CD before external drives
> > too, which means you can't override a config burned on the CD.
> 
> I'm open on what we check first, you can change it if you want.

I'm open too.  My thought was it should check the most common devices we
use first.

I was also thinking that it'd be nice to have the option to override a
config burned on CD.

Anyone else have an opinion on the subject?

 - BS

Thread: [Devil-linux-develop] New 1.3 testing release.

devil-linux-develop