linuxcoe-devel

Re: [Linuxcoe-devel] Instalinux

[Bryan G. <Bry...@HP...>]

Carl,

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 02:11:09AM +0000, Carl Lowenstein wrote:
> On Feb 19, 2008 12:16 PM, Carl Lowenstein <car...@gm...> wrote:
> > We discussed Instalinux at the Score conference in Los Angeles a week
>                                                          SCALE  :-)
> 
> > or so ago.  Since then I have had some time to try it.  I used the web
> > site <www.instalinux.com> to construct a CDrom for installation of
> > Ubuntu 7.10.  Booting the CD either with an emulator or with a real
> > computer leaves me at the error message:

Thanks for contacting me, sorry you are having troubles.

> > Configuring S35initrd-preseed
> > The installer failed to process the preconfiguration file from
> > file:///preseeed.cfg.  The file may be corrupt.

It took me a couple of tries to come close to replicating your issue.

Can you verify that during the design process, on step 4a, that you
did in fact pick the correct disk type.  From what I have seen wrt
Ubuntu, is that SATA drives (and even some ATA/IDE) drives are showing
up as SCSI (ie. sda) during the installation process.

The images I generate seem to work fine on all the VMs I have tried,
but I do recall having a similar issue on some laptop installs.

> > When I loop-mount the .ISO image and look at it, I find a file
> > "preseed" with no .cfg extension.  It contains a set of instructions
> > for performing the installation.  Presumably the program  that
> > produced the file and the program that uses it have gotten out of
> > sync.
> >
> > I have thought about remastering the .ISO image to change the name of
> > the file, but have not yet gotten around to it.
> >
> > Setting up my own local copy of the Linux COE system is rather more
> > than I really wanted to do, but it might be educational.
> 
> Late-breaking news.  I just remastered the .ISO image making no
> changes except to rename preseed to preseed.cfg.  Didn't help.  Boots
> as expected, but still came up with the same error message.

This would match with the above.  However, if this doesn't solve
your issue, please let me know.  I know that the instalinux site
is running a bit older version of LinuxCOE, but I can nudge the
owner to upgrade as well.

> I don't know enough about preseed files to know whether the contents
> of the file are significant here.  The name change doesn't seem to do
> anything for me.

And FWIW, you can view the preseed file on the last page, link below
the image download.  This is the same file that is embedded in the
ram disk for use by the installer. 

bryang

PS - I have copied the developer's list as well, in case their
	collective eyes can see another possible cause.

>     carl lowenstein         marine physical lab     u.c. san diego
>                                                  clo...@uc...

Re: [Linuxcoe-devel] Instalinux

[Bryan G. <Bry...@HP...>]

Carl,

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 03:25:31AM +0000, Carl Lowenstein wrote:
> On Feb 19, 2008 6:11 PM, Carl Lowenstein <car...@gm...> wrote:
> > On Feb 19, 2008 12:16 PM, Carl Lowenstein <car...@gm...> wrote:
> > > We discussed Instalinux at the Score conference in Los Angeles a week
> >                                                          SCALE  :-)
> >
> > > or so ago.  Since then I have had some time to try it.  I used the web
> > > site <www.instalinux.com> to construct a CDrom for installation of
> > > Ubuntu 7.10.  Booting the CD either with an emulator or with a real
> > > computer leaves me at the error message:
> > >
> > > Configuring S35initrd-preseed
> > > The installer failed to process the preconfiguration file from
> > > file:///preseeed.cfg.  The file may be corrupt.
> > >
> > > When I loop-mount the .ISO image and look at it, I find a file
> > > "preseed" with no .cfg extension.  It contains a set of instructions
> > > for performing the installation.  Presumably the program  that
> > > produced the file and the program that uses it have gotten out of
> > > sync.
> > >
> > > I have thought about remastering the .ISO image to change the name of
> > > the file, but have not yet gotten around to it.
> > >
> > > Setting up my own local copy of the Linux COE system is rather more
> > > than I really wanted to do, but it might be educational.
> >
> > Late-breaking news.  I just remastered the .ISO image making no
> > changes except to rename preseed to preseed.cfg.  Didn't help.  Boots
> > as expected, but still came up with the same error message.
> >
> > I don't know enough about preseed files to know whether the contents
> > of the file are significant here.  The name change doesn't seem to do
> > anything for me.
> 
> More bad news.  I just tried from <www.instalinux.com> creating an
> install CD image for Debian Etch.  It too has a file named preseed.
> It too bombs out with the message "The installer failed to process the
> preconfiguration file from file:///[preseed.cfg.  The file may be
> corrupt."

Ah, ok, so am I correct in assuming that you have setup a profile
and are trying to create a boot image?  If so, it appears as though
your disk partitioning information is not of the correct format
(although the provided example is far from being useful).

So can you try one of the following options:

  1) do not use a profile, but rather try thhe "custom" option on step #2,
     then you will get a step #4a, where you will select a scsi disk
     like sda

  2) follow the thread in

  	http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1804636&group_id=144250&atid=758200

     to modify your profile's disk partitioning section

> So I don't know who is doing something wrong.  If I makes any
> difference, I am running this on a Fedora Core 3 system, using Qemu to
> boot the .ISO image in an emulated machine.  I did try VMWare once
> with the Ubuntu image, and got the same error message.

As above, we provide a bad example (which I will try to get
fixed).

> I note that on the Instalinux web site, the configuration file is
> referred to as"preseed.txt" while the installer error message refers
> to it as "preseed.cfg" and the name as shown in the file system is
> "preseed".

IIRC, it actually searches for several names, and only the last
failed attempt is shown as an error,

bryang

Re: [Linuxcoe-devel] Instalinux

[Bryan G. <Bry...@HP...>]

Carl,

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 07:08:03PM +0000, Carl Lowenstein wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 11:00 PM, Bryan Gartner <Bry...@hp...> wrote:
> I have tried both with and without setting up a profile.

Hmm, okay.

> >  Ah, ok, so am I correct in assuming that you have setup a profile
> >  and are trying to create a boot image?  If so, it appears as though
> >  your disk partitioning information is not of the correct format
> >  (although the provided example is far from being useful).
> >
> >  So can you try one of the following options:
> >
> >   1) do not use a profile, but rather try thhe "custom" option on step #2,
> >      then you will get a step #4a, where you will select a scsi disk
> >      like sda
> 
> It's hard to tell for sure but I think that today I am getting to
> places in the interactive GUI stuff where I have never been before.

Yes, if you don't use a profile, you get all those same kinds of
prompts in the bootimage process flow.  Pay up front or pay now
approach ;)

> >   2) follow the thread in
> >
> >         http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1804636&group_id=144250&atid=758200
> >
> >      to modify your profile's disk partitioning section
> 
> Today I do:
> 
> Step 2 Custom
> Step 3 select "network waystation"  shouldn't this really be called
> "software repository"?

We long ago adopted the network waystation terminology for all our
internal deployments (for many projects), so that was our historical
term.  We also support local media installs, BTW.

> Step 4 select ubuntu-desktop
>            select partitioning method "multi-user workstation"
> Step 4a select IDE0.0 because my Qemu emulator does IDE drives.

ditto here

> Wait for results -- the web site is slow enough today for me to
> compose the above several lines in another window.

Understood.  And if the site owner was in our chat session, I'd
ping him to see what's up.  BTW, feel free to join IRC at:

	irc://irc.freenode.net/#linuxcoe

as noted on our project home page.

> OK, have downloaded the .ISO image, checked its MD5 sum, and started
> up Qemu with that CD image and a blank 8GB hard drive image.  It is
> past the initial stumble on preseed.cfg and is now going through what
> looks like a text-mode Ubuntu/Debian install.

That sounds normal then.

> But I don't really know what is really different between this and
> several other things I tried yesterday and the day before.

Heh!

> Will have to try to create some controlled failures, following this
> single success.

FWIW, disk partitioning with preseed is not for the faint of heart
and is the single biggest achilles heel in the process, imho.

> By the way, do you recycle the 4-digit isoxxxx.iso file names?

Yes, those are just process IDs, and your images get autocleaned
on a time based schedule.

> My next round of questions may very well be about setting up my own
> local repository so that I could use this for Linux InstallFests but
> run at local network and disk speeds rather than using the remote
> network.  But first I will browse among the SourceForge discussions.

Excellent, I often do that as well for demos (even just using my
laptop for smaller groups).  I am also schedule to do just such
an InstallFest for Hardy when it releases.  Feel free to ask
whatever questions you may have, and I'll try to help,

bryang

Re: [Linuxcoe-devel] Instalinux

[Chris S. <chr...@gm...>]

>
>  > Wait for results -- the web site is slow enough today for me to
>  > compose the above several lines in another window.
>
>  Understood.  And if the site owner was in our chat session, I'd
>  ping him to see what's up.  BTW, feel free to join IRC at:

Not sure what was up.  The web host sometimes gets pretty slow.  I
can't complain - it's a pretty good deal :)

>  > My next round of questions may very well be about setting up my own
>  > local repository so that I could use this for Linux InstallFests but
>  > run at local network and disk speeds rather than using the remote
>  > network.  But first I will browse among the SourceForge discussions.
>
>  Excellent, I often do that as well for demos (even just using my
>  laptop for smaller groups).  I am also schedule to do just such
>  an InstallFest for Hardy when it releases.  Feel free to ask
>  whatever questions you may have, and I'll try to help,

If you need any help getting it set up let me know.  At one point I
copied the source files of Instalinux to a sub directory and turned on
indexing so that folks who wanted to could see how it's structured.

Chris