Live-dvd not booting properly or taking huge time to boot.

ferrelas · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Jun 2008 Posts: 109

When I boot from the live-dvd (2008 beta2), it stops after the text "Unpacking hotplug firmware" appears. I still have a little console style cursor in the lower left corner, but is it normal for the computer to remain this way for over 20 minutes? I'm booting on a LG laptop, additional stats on hardware available on request.

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 9:00 am Post subject:

Try a different version of the install disk. I have had good success with the 2007.0 minimal and Live DVD disks booting with the command "gentoo nox" so I can do a manual install. It's really the best way to do the deed, and a lot less problematic than using the GUI based install. If you'd like to give a manual install a try, use the Gentoo Handbook and whichever version of install disk you can get to function.

Good luck.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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cwr · Veteran Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969

Yes, "gentoo nox" is usually how I bring up Gentoo; it's something that should
perhaps be recommended more often/strongly for people with installation
glitches, since you get a working system pretty quickly, and debugging
is then a lot easier. It runs against the idea of "graphical everything", so it
probably wouldn't be accepted as the default install, but it makes it a lot
easier to deal with problems. It's difficult to see how a Stage 3 manual install
from the command line could be made any quicker or simpler.

Will

ferrelas · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Jun 2008 Posts: 109

I would have used the minimal cd if I could, but it didn't agree with my framebuffer. How do I sneak this "gentoo nox" into the boot, just edit one of the GRUB entries and pray?

ferrelas · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Jun 2008 Posts: 109

I tried adding:

cwr · Veteran Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969

"nox" is an option when booting Gentoo from the Live DVD/CD; there's a menu,
early on, which says "boot the default kernel, or what?" or words to that effect.

One of the menu options is "memtest", if that helps - but what you want to enter
as a kernel name is "gentoo nox", which boots the Live gentoo kernel and doesn't
bring up a GUI.

I'm not clear exactly how grub brings up the GUI normally - my systems come
up to a command prompt, and I then start whatever GUI I want to run by hand.

Will

ferrelas · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Jun 2008 Posts: 109

When I boot from the live-dvd I get a GRUB menu and in this menu I have the choices: gentoo, gentoo [No FrameBuffer], help and memtest. If the no framebuffer option is the same thing as this nox thing, I've tried it to the effect that it boots at all, unlike when I use the first one, or at least I don't get any visual output.

I've had trouble with other live-discs as well. Knoppix doesn't seem to boot at all, I get a prompt, press enter to boot, but then everthing is black and silent, and the drive doesn't seem to be reading from the disc at all. Same thing with the minimal install cd (2007). Ubuntu shows a message about some kind of BIOS bug and then a splash screen with a progress bar and a little indicator wich freezes a second or so after appearing. I can get the indicator moving by pressing the power button repeatedly in rapid succsession, but I haven't dared using that method to try to boot the system for fear of hardware damage. So it seems like something is off. Anyone got any ideas about what i should do next?

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 6:58 pm Post subject:

Back up to the 2007.0 disks and try. They will allow you to pass arguments to the kernel, such as nox. I used the 2007.0 LiveDVD for all three running Gentoo installs I have, so it comes highly recommended. I'm not sure why the devs went from using isolinux to using grub in the new disks. Personally, I prefer the isolinux stuff.

Good luck.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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ferrelas · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Jun 2008 Posts: 109

Wiil I have the option to not use framebuffer when booting from the 2007 dvd? This seems to have been the problem with other live-media since the only one to actually have given me visual output was the 2k8 dvd with the no framebuffer boot option.

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 8:37 pm Post subject:

I did, but then again, my systems aren't yours. You really don't need the frame buffer to do a manual install. That said, if your machine is a year or two old (or older), then it shouldn't be a problem.

Good luck.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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