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45.2 Installation Problems
Installation problems are situations when a machine fails to install. It
may fail entirely or it may not be able to start the graphical installer.
This section highlights some of the typical problems you might run into
and offers possible solutions or workarounds for this kind of situations.
45.2.1 No Bootable CD-ROM Drive Available
If your computer does not contain a bootable CD or DVD-ROM drive
or if the one you have is not supported by Linux, there are several
options for installing your machine without a need for a built-in CD or
DVD drive:
- Booting from a Floppy Disk
-
Create a boot floppy and boot from floppy disk instead of
CD or DVD.
- Using an External Boot Device
-
If it is supported by the machine's BIOS and the
installation kernel, boot for installation from
external CD or DVD drives.
- Network Boot via PXE
-
If a machines lacks a CD or DVD drive, but provides a working
ethernet connection, perform a completely network-based
installation. See Section 4.1.3,
Remote Installation via VNC—PXE Boot and
Wake on LAN and Section 4.1.6,
Remote Installation via SSH—PXE Boot and
Wake on LAN for
details.
Booting from a Floppy Disk (SYSLINUX)
On some older computers, there is no bootable CD-ROM drive available,
but a floppy disk drive. To install on such a system, create boot
disks and boot your system with them. See Section 7.5.3,
Boot and Rescue Disks for directions for
creating boot disks with
YaST.
The boot disks include the loader SYSLINUX and the program linuxrc.
SYSLINUX enables the selection of a kernel during the boot procedure
and the specification of any parameters needed for the hardware used.
The program linuxrc supports the loading of kernel modules for your
hardware and subsequently starts the installation.
When booting from a boot disk, the boot
procedure is initiated by the boot loader SYSLINUX (package
syslinux). When the system is booted,
SYSLINUX runs a minimum hardware detection that mainly consists of
the following steps:
-
The program checks if the BIOS provides
VESA 2.0–compliant framebuffer support and boots the
kernel accordingly.
-
The monitor data (DDC info) is read.
-
The first block of the first hard disk
(MBR) is read to map BIOS IDs to Linux
device names during the boot loader configuration.
The program attempts to read the block by means of the
the lba32 functions of the BIOS to determine if the
BIOS supports these functions.
If you keep Shift pressed when SYSLINUX
starts, all these steps are skipped. For troubleshooting purposes,
insert the line
verbose 1
in syslinux.cfg for the boot loader to display
which action is currently being performed.
If the machine does not boot from the floppy disk, you may
need to change the boot sequence in the BIOS to
A,C,CDROM.
External Boot Devices
Most CD-ROM drives are supported. If problems arise when booting from
the CD-ROM drive, try booting CD 2 of the CD set.
If the system does not have a CD-ROM or floppy disk, it is still
possible that an external CD-ROM, connected with USB, FireWire, or
SCSI, can be used to boot the system. This depends largely on the
interaction of the BIOS and the hardware used. Sometimes a BIOS
update may help if you encounter problems.
45.2.2 Booting from Installation Media Fails
There are two possible reasons for a machine not to boot for
installation:
- CD or DVD-ROM Drive Unable to Read the Boot Image
-
Your CD-ROM drive might not be able to read the boot image on
CD 1. In this case, use CD 2 to boot the system. CD 2 contains a
conventional 2.88 MB boot image that can be read even by
unsupported drives and allows you to perform the installation
over the network as described in Section 4.0,
Remote Installation.
- Incorrect Boot Sequence in BIOS
-
The BIOS boot sequence must have CD-ROM set as the
first entry for booting. Otherwise the machine would try to boot
from another medium, typically the hard disk. Guidance for
changing the BIOS boot sequence can be found the documentation
provided with your motherboard or in the following
paragraphs.
The BIOS is the software that enables the very basic functions of a
computer. Motherboard vendors provide a BIOS specifically made for
their hardware. Normally, the BIOS setup can only be accessed at a
specific time—when the machine is booting. During this
initialization phase, the machine performs a number of diagnostic
hardware tests. One of them is a memory check, indicated by a memory
counter. When the counter appears, look for a line, usually below the
counter or somewhere at the bottom, mentioning the key to press to
access the BIOS setup. Usually the key to press is
Del, F1, or Esc.
Press this key until the BIOS setup screen appears.
Changing the BIOS Boot Sequence
-
Enter the BIOS using the proper key as announced by the boot
routines and wait for the BIOS screen to appear.
-
To change the boot sequence in an AWARD BIOS, look for the
entry. Other manufacturers
may have a different name for this, such as . When you have found the entry, select it and
confirm with Enter.
-
In the screen that opens, look for a subentry called . The boot sequence is often set to something
like C,A or A,C. In the
former case, the machine first searches the hard disk (C) then the
floppy drive (A) to find a bootable medium. Change the settings by
pressing PgUp or PgDown until the
sequence is A,CDROM,C.
-
Leave the BIOS setup screen by pressing Esc. To
save the changes, select
or press F10. To confirm that your settings should
be saved, press Y.
Changing the Boot Sequence in a SCSI BIOS (Adaptec Host
Adapter)
-
Open the setup by pressing
Ctrl + A.
-
Select , which displays the
connected hardware components.
Make note of the SCSI ID of your CD-ROM drive.
-
Exit the menu with Esc.
-
Open . Under
, select and press Enter.
-
Enter the ID of the CD-ROM drive and press
Enter again.
-
Press Esc twice to return to the start
screen of the SCSI BIOS.
-
Exit this screen and confirm with to
boot the computer.
Regardless of what language and keyboard layout your final
installation will be using, most BIOS configurations use the US
keyboard layout as depicted in the following figure:
45.2.3 Fails to Boot
Some hardware types, mainly fairly old or very recent ones, fail to
install. In many cases, this might happen because support for
this type of hardware is missing from the installation kernel or due to
certain
functionalities included in this kernel, such as ACPI, that
still cause problems on some hardware.
If your system fails to install using the standard
mode from the first installation boot
screen, try the following:
-
With the first CD or DVD still in the CD-ROM drive, reboot the machine
with
Ctrl
Alt
Del
or using the hardware reset
button.
-
When the boot screen appears, use the arrow keys of your keyboard
to navigate to and
press Enter to launch the boot
and installation process. This option disables the support for ACPI
power management techniques.
-
Proceed with the installation as described in Section 3.0,
Installation with YaST.
If this fails, proceed as above, but choose instead. This option disables ACPI and DMA
support. Most hardware should boot with this option.
If both of these options fail, use the boot options prompt to pass any
additional parameters needed to support this type of hardware to the
installation kernel. For more information about the parameters available
as boot options, refer to the kernel documentation located in
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt.
HINT: Obtaining Kernel Documentation
Install the kernel-source package to view the
kernel documentation. There are various other ACPI-related kernel parameters that can be
entered at the boot prompt prior to booting for installation:
- acpi=off
-
This parameter disables the complete ACPI subsystem on your
computer. This may be useful if your computer cannot handle ACPI
at all or if you think ACPI in your computer causes trouble.
- acpi=force
-
Always enable ACPI even if your computer has an old BIOS
dated before the year 2000. This parameter also enables ACPI if
it is set in addition to
acpi=off.
- acpi=noirq
-
Do not use ACPI for IRQ routing.
- acpi=ht
-
Run only enough ACPI to enable hyper-threading.
- acpi=strict
-
Be less tolerant of platforms that are not strictly ACPI
specification compliant.
- pci=noacpi
-
Disable PCI IRQ routing of the new ACPI system.
Once you have determined the right parameter combination, YaST
automatically writes them to the boot loader configuration to make sure
that the system boots properly next time.
If unexplainable errors occur when the kernel is loaded or during the
installation, select in the boot menu to
check the memory. If returns an error,
it is usually a hardware error.
45.2.4 Fails to Launch Graphical Installer
After you insert the first CD or DVD into your drive and
reboot your machine, the installation screen comes up, but after you
select , the graphical installer
does not start.
There are several ways to deal with this situation:
To change to another screen resolution for installation, proceed as
follows:
-
Boot for installation.
-
Press F3 twice to open a menu
from which to select a lower resolution for installation purposes.
-
Select and proceed with the installation
as described in Section 3.0,
Installation with YaST.
To perform an installation in text mode, proceed as follows:
-
Boot for installation.
-
Press F3 twice and select .
-
Select and proceed with the installation
as described in Section 3.0,
Installation with YaST.
To perform a VNC installation, proceed as follows:
-
Boot for installation.
-
Enter the following text at the boot options prompt: vnc=1 vncpassword=some_password
Replace some_password with the password to use
for installation.
-
Select then press Enter to start the installation and select DHCP for network configuration when prompted
to do so.
Instead of starting right into the graphical installation routine,
the system continues to run in text mode then halts,
displaying a message containing the IP address and port number
at which the installer can be reached via a browser interface or
a VNC viewer application.
-
If using a browser to access the installer, launch the browser and
enter the address information provided by the installation routines
on the future SUSE® Linux Enterprise machine and hit Enter:
https://ip_address_of_machine:5801
A dialog opens in the browser window prompting you for the VNC
password. Enter it and proceed with the installation as described
in Section 3.0,
Installation with YaST.
IMPORTANT:
Installation via VNC works with any browser under any operating
system, provided Java support is enabled.
If you use any kind of VNC viewer on your preferred operating
system, enter the IP address and password when prompted to do so. A
window opens, displaying the installation dialogs. Proceed with
the installation as usual.
45.2.5 Only Minimalistic Boot Screen Started
You inserted the first CD or DVD into the drive, the BIOS routines are
finished, but the system does not start with the graphical boot
screen. Instead it launches a very minimalistic text-based
interface. This might happen on any machine not providing sufficient
graphics memory for rendering a graphical boot screen.
Although the text boot screen looks minimalistic, it provides nearly the
same functionality as the graphical one:
- Boot Options
-
Unlike the graphical interface, the different boot options
cannot be selected using the cursor keys of your keyboard. The boot
menu of the text mode boot screen offers some keywords to
enter at the boot prompt. These keywords map to the options
offered in the graphical version. Enter your choice and hit Enter
to launch the boot process.
- Custom Boot Options
-
After selecting a boot option, enter the appropriate
keyword at the boot prompt or enter some custom boot options as
described in
Fails to Boot. To
launch the installation process, press Enter.
- Screen Resolutions
-
Use the F keys to determine the screen resolution for
installation. If you need to boot in text mode, choose
F3.
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