RE: FC4 does not work, "out of the box" for me; GUI/X11 fails

[Dan Thurman]

Ok, here is what I recall....

1) Starting from scratch, insert the boot cd
2) Select the linux text, to do a text-based installation
3) Follow all the steps, choose your software (I chosed 'everything')
4) When it reboots one of two things came up for me:
  a) At first, Grub reported a text-based message: "GRUB>"
     So, I was perplexed and did not know what to do.  So,
     instead of trying to solve this one, I chosed to reboot
     with the Fedora Rescue disc
  b) After the second time I re-installed from scratch, grub
     came up find with the splash screen and all that, but then
     when I came to figuring out how to modify grub to boot runlevel
     3, it was (and still is) not possible to me to figure out this
     step.  Please reply and tell me how this one is done please
     so that I know how?  Of course this would be the easiest place
     to get into runlevel 3 and yum update and my problems could have
     been MUCH easier.
5) Fedora Rescue mode
  a) Hit 'Enter', the default mode
  b) Drivers are loaded (if any), then choose language, then keyboard
     and anaconda starts up.
  c) "Setup Networking" appears
     Choose 'Yes', then configure as needed (I choosed manual, not DHCP)
     and added the IP address and mask., Click 'OK' then complete by
     adding the gateway, primary, secondary, tertiary as needed and
     click 'OK'
  d) In 'Rescue', choose: 'Continue' (it will attempt to find the
sysimage)
     and allow you to mount the sysimage if found.  I haven't tried the directly
     to command shell mode at any time.
  e) Mount the sysimage: chroot /mnt/sysimage
  f) Now, you are "in" the environment (whatever it is), and you may think that
     you are in single user mode but you have networking active.... so... you
     may think that you can yum update here.... right?

     Well... *some* files do yum install - but others that as it seems to me
     mostly the ones with library installations appear to send out error messages
     that the scriptlets are failing and messages in the errors shows the %prenum,
     %postnum type messages.

Hope this helps....

Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: fedora-list-bounces(a)redhat.com
[mailto:[e-mail]]On Behalf Of Les Mikesell
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 12:33 PM
To: For users of Fedora Core releases
Subject: RE: FC4 does not work, "out of the box" for me; GUI/X11 fails


On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 14:06, Daniel B. Thurman wrote:
>  If you knew
>  that you just have to put boot run-level at level 3 to BYPASS
>  the GUI System, how can you do it?  
You can interrupt the default boot and change this at boot-time.

>  Ah, ok... but then you have this FEDORA RESCUE DISK... and
>  all I would need to do, is to mount the sysimage, edit the
>  inittab file and reboot -- HOWEVER -- before you mount the
>  sysimage, there is a NETWORK CONFIGURATION step - and you
>  are thinking - AH!  YUM UPDATES!!!  I would bet you a pretty
>  penny YOU HADN'T THOUGHT OF THAT!!!
>  
>  I did.  So I reported it so that others won't fall into this trap! 
I wish you had been more specific about how if failed.  I would
have expected this to work too.  Do you remember any details
about what it did wrong?

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell(a)gmail.com


-- 
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list(a)redhat.com
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

-- 
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.12.5/150 - Release Date: 10/27/2005
 

-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.12.5/150 - Release Date: 10/27/2005

FC4 does not work, "out of the box" for me; GUI/X11 fails

[Les Mikesell]

On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 15:19, Daniel B. Thurman wrote:
>    b) After the second time I re-installed from scratch, grub
>       came up find with the splash screen and all that, but then
>       when I came to figuring out how to modify grub to boot runlevel
>       3, it was (and still is) not possible to me to figure out this
>       step.  Please reply and tell me how this one is done please
>       so that I know how?  Of course this would be the easiest place
>       to get into runlevel 3 and yum update and my problems could have
>       been MUCH easier. 
At the grub splash screen, hit any key within 5 seconds or so.
If you need to choose a non-default boot entry, move to it with
the arrow keys.  Hit 'e' to edit.
Highlight the kernel line with the arrow key, hit 'e' to edit.
Add the runlevel you want (or any other kernel arguments to the line
and hit enter.  (You can use '3' for multiuser text mode or 'single'
to keep a lot of other stuff from starting)  Hit 'b' to boot.

>    f) Now, you are "in" the environment (whatever it is),
> and you may think that
>       you are in single user mode but you have networking active.... so... you
>       may think that you can yum update here.... right?
>  
>       Well... *some* files do yum install - but others that as it seems to me
>       mostly the ones with library installations appear to send out error messages
>       that the scriptlets are failing and messages in the errors shows the %prenum,
>       %postnum type messages.
>  
>  Hope this helps.... 
Hmmm, maybe you just need root's normal login environment. I wonder if
doing an 'su - ' after the chroot would set it up right.

-- 
 Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell(a)gmail.com

FC4 does not work, "out of the box" for me; GUI/X11 fails

[Jim Cornette]

Daniel B. Thurman wrote:

> Ok, here is what I recall....
>
> 1) Starting from scratch, insert the boot cd
> 2) Select the linux text, to do a text-based installation
> 3) Follow all the steps, choose your software (I chosed 'everything')
> 4) When it reboots one of two things came up for me:
>   a) At first, Grub reported a text-based message: "GRUB>"
>      So, I was perplexed and did not know what to do.  So,
>      instead of trying to solve this one, I chosed to reboot
>      with the Fedora Rescue disc
>   
>  
Good choice. When you boot into the rescue mode, after chrooting, you 
might be able to run grub-install /dev/<boot-device> - (whatever device)
This usually corrects grub when I had problems in the past.

>   b) After the second time I re-installed from scratch, grub
>      came up find with the splash screen and all that, but then
>      when I came to figuring out how to modify grub to boot runlevel
>      3, it was (and still is) not possible to me to figure out this
>      step.  Please reply and tell me how this one is done please
>      so that I know how?  Of course this would be the easiest place
>      to get into runlevel 3 and yum update and my problems could have
>      been MUCH easier.
>   
>  
Basically, press a key to unhide the menu when grub displays. Then you 
would highlight the kernel you desired and press the "a" key to display 
the boot line. You would want to backspace out the "rhgb quiet" portion 
of the line out, then add a spacebar followed by the number 3. Press 
enter and you should be booting into runlevel 3.
Login at the terminal (root of course), you should be in runlevel 3.

> 5) Fedora Rescue mode
>   a) Hit 'Enter', the default mode
>   b) Drivers are loaded (if any), then choose language, then keyboard
>      and anaconda starts up.
>   c) "Setup Networking" appears
>      Choose 'Yes', then configure as needed (I choosed manual, not DHCP)
>      and added the IP address and mask., Click 'OK' then complete by
>      adding the gateway, primary, secondary, tertiary as needed and
>      click 'OK'
>   d) In 'Rescue', choose: 'Continue' (it will attempt to find the
> sysimage)
>      and allow you to mount the sysimage if found.  I haven't tried the directly
>      to command shell mode at any time.
>   e) Mount the sysimage: chroot /mnt/sysimage
>   f) Now, you are "in" the environment (whatever it is), and you may think that
>      you are in single user mode but you have networking active.... so... you
>      may think that you can yum update here.... right?
>   
>  
You would assume that you now have a runlevel 1. You are right though, 
things are not the same as runlevel 1. I don't know if you could telinit 
into a runlevel 3 or not from rescue mode. I never tried it before. 
Rescue mode does not bring in services and device nodes from my 
experience with chrooted environments.

>      Well... *some* files do yum install - but others that as it seems
> to me
>      mostly the ones with library installations appear to send out error messages
>      that the scriptlets are failing and messages in the errors shows the %prenum,
>      %postnum type messages.
>
> Hope this helps....
>   
>  
Thanks for the "trial by fire" feedback.

Jim

> Dan
>   
>

FC4 does not work, "out of the box" for me; GUI/X11 fails

[Tim]

Daniel B. Thurman

> >  b) After the second time I re-installed from scratch, grub
> >     came up find with the splash screen and all that, but then
> >     when I came to figuring out how to modify grub to boot runlevel
> >     3, it was (and still is) not possible to me to figure out this
> >     step.  Please reply and tell me how this one is done please
> >     so that I know how?  Of course this would be the easiest place
> >     to get into runlevel 3 and yum update and my problems could have
> >     been MUCH easier. 

Jim Cornette:

>  Basically, press a key to unhide the menu when grub displays. Then
> you
>  would highlight the kernel you desired and press the "a" key to
>  display the boot line. You would want to backspace out the "rhgb
>  quiet" portion of the line out, then add a spacebar followed by the
>  number 3. Press enter and you should be booting into runlevel 3.
>  Login at the terminal (root of course), you should be in runlevel 3. 
I can see that a good option would be for the initial installation to
have two GRUB entries for the first kernel.

1. Normal boot.
2. Reduced level boot.

It might make things easier the first time around.

-- 
Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

FC4 does not work, "out of the box" for me; GUI/X11 fails

[Jim Cornette]

> I can see that a good option would be for the initial installation to
> have two GRUB entries for the first kernel.
>
> 1. Normal boot.
> 2. Reduced level boot.
>
> It might make things easier the first time around.
>
>   
>  
For fresh installs where rebooting the system after install and before 
firstboot, such an option being availble would be handy. At least grub 
does make it easier to change runlevels or add parameters to the boot 
command when problems arise

With the GCC4 problem that really took its toll on X for FC4 release, it 
would have spared users from turning away from Fedora, as stated by some 
who were detoured to other distros temporarily. A new set of FC4 ISOs 
with all improvements to date should be released once FC3 becomes 
unsupported. Sooner if developers or community provided an updated set 
of ISOs to lessen the frustrations new installers of FC4 experienced.
FC5 should be a lot cleaner of a distro snapshot.  (pure guess) - The 
time period between the two snapshots and things learned from the FC3 to 
FC4 snapshot which had the shorter time period to smooth out the 
installation ISOs for FC4.

Let's hope for a better FC5 and if we help weed out the bugs through the 
upcoming beta cycle.

Jim

-- 
QOTD:
	If it's too loud, you're too old.