Stage 1/3 Installation Support - Gentoo 2004.3 & GCC 343

[onslaught]

Heya all. I've got gentoo "installed" on my system using this method however I cannot boot up. When it boots up everything is going fine till i get:

* Checking root filesystem [ok]
Failed to open the device '/dev/sda4': No such file or directory

/sbin/rc:line 250: rc_splash:command not found
* Filesystem couldn't be fixed [!!]

/dev/console: No such file or directory
Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D for normal startup)

My root directory is /dev/sda4. I do not have framebuffer support comiled into my kernel. My video card is ATI RADEON 9800 pro. I didn't compile support for my video card specifically into my kernel.

Other than only have a single splash screen of 1024 x 768 I have followed the guide as closely as I could for my architecture (pentium4).

If anyone could help I'd be very thankful.

[96140]

Heya all. I've got gentoo "installed" on my system using this method however I cannot boot up. When it boots up everything is going fine till i get:

* Checking root filesystem [ok]
Failed to open the device '/dev/sda4': No such file or directory

/sbin/rc:line 250: rc_splash:command not found
* Filesystem couldn't be fixed [!!]

/dev/console: No such file or directory
Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D for normal startup)

My root directory is /dev/sda4. I do not have framebuffer support comiled into my kernel. My video card is ATI RADEON 9800 pro. I didn't compile support for my video card specifically into my kernel.

Other than only have a single splash screen of 1024 x 768 I have followed the guide as closely as I could for my architecture (pentium4).

If anyone could help I'd be very thankful.

Wow. This is exactly the error I had (that I mentioned on the previous page) before I wiped my Gentoo partitions (temporarily). The exception was that I have an ATA drive, so my partition designations were different, and I added support for my graphic card's chipset into the kernel (but not the actual card, which was agpgart as a module) as well as framebuffer support.

onslaught, have you tried monkeying around with grub boot options for your kernel? Or better yet, seeing if dmesg works, and if it does, perhaps you could boot up Knoppix, mount your partitions from there, and chroot into Gentoo to start fixing problems. Actually, I don't think you even need to chroot; on Knoppix 3.6 I only have to right-click on the partitions to change them to read/write and then it's just a matter of firing up a text editor to start changing config files.

Did you ever run into any problems compiling? Which gcc are you using?

[dedeaux]

Ok. I will echo the same.

After completing the guide(successfully a second time) I was welcomed with the same:

Code: Select all

* Mounting sysfs at /sys... 
can't create lock file /etc/mtab~1145: Read-only file system (use -n flag to override) [ !! ] 

...further down... 

* Checking root filesystem... 
Failed to open the device '/dev/hda3': No such file or diectory 

/sbin/rc: line 250: rc_splash: command not found 
* Filesystem couldn't be fixed Sad [ !! ] 

/dev/console: No such file or directory 
Give root password for maintenance 
(or type Control-D for normal startup): 

My emerge info:

Code: Select all

Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16
Portage 2.0.51-r15 (default-linux/x86/2004.3, gcc-3.4.3-20050110, glibc-2.3.4.20050125-r0, 2.6.9-gentoo-r1 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.9-gentoo-r1 i686 Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 - M CPU 1.80GHz
Python:              dev-lang/python-2.3.4-r1 [2.3.4 (#1, Feb 25 2005, 08:17:31)]
dev-lang/python:     2.3.4-r1
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.59-r6, 2.13
sys-devel/automake:  1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.5, 1.4_p6, 1.6.3, 1.9.4
sys-devel/binutils:  2.15.92.0.2-r1
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.10-r4
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.8.1-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-march=pentium4 -O3 -mtune=pentium4 -fforce-addr -momit-leaf-frame-pointer -fomit-frame-pointer -ftracer -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium4 -O3 -mtune=pentium4 -fforce-addr -momit-leaf-frame-pointer -fomit-frame-pointer -ftracer -pipe -fvisibility-inlines-hidden"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs autoconfig candy ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.osuosl.org http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 X acpi apm arts avi berkdb bitmap-fonts crypt cups emboss encode f77 font-server foomaticdb fortran gdbm gif gnome gpm gtk gtk2 imlib ipv6 ithreads jpeg kde libg++ libwww mad mikmod motif mpeg ncurses nls nptl oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png pthreads python qt quicktime readline sdl spell ssl svga tcpd truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts xml2 xmms xv zlib"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CBUILD, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS

My fstab (incidently I see three people with this problem and one of them is assuming his hardware is bad)

Code: Select all

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
# $Header: /home/cvsroot/gentoo-src/rc-scripts/etc/fstab,v 1.14 2003/10/13 20:03:38 azarah Exp $
#
# noatime turns off atimes for increased performance (atimes normally aren't
# needed; notail increases performance of ReiserFS (at the expense of storage
# efficiency).  It's safe to drop the noatime options if you want and to 
# switch between notail and tail freely.

# <fs>          	<mountpoint>    <type>  	<opts>      		<dump/pass>

# NOTE: If your BOOT partition is ReiserFS, add the notail option to opts.
/dev/hda1		/boot		reiserfs	noauto,notail		1 1
/dev/hda3		/		reiserfs	notail			0 0
/dev/hda2		none		swap		sw			0 0
/dev/cdroms/cdrom0	/mnt/cdrom	iso9660		user,noauto,ro,exec	0 0
#/dev/fd0		/mnt/floppy	auto		noauto			0 0

# NOTE: The next line is critical for boot!
none			/proc		proc		defaults		0 0

# glibc 2.2 and above expects tmpfs to be mounted at /dev/shm for
# POSIX shared memory (shm_open, shm_unlink). 
# (tmpfs is a dynamically expandable/shrinkable ramdisk, and will
#  use almost no memory if not populated with files)
# Adding the following line to /etc/fstab should take care of this:

none			/dev/shm	tmpfs		nodev,nosuid		0 0

So, I await any help you can offer.

[edit]
I might add that I chose not to use the eyecandy gensplash and hence did not do step 9.3. Neither did I add any grub.conf accomodations for fb or the gensplash extras. My laptop has a 1280X854 screen and I couldn't get bootsplash working months ago and assumed that it still won't work for me.

[96140]

So, there are now at least three users with this same error, I don't believe I have hardware troubles of any sort. Maybe it's not a matter of ReiserFS not liking my drive; mostly, I only thought that might be the culprit because of my 16 consecutive failed attempts at getting a working Ubuntu install, which was why I came to Gentoo. I know ext3 works, as does ext2. But is it a matter of failing to emerge some necessary ReiserFS utilities or something? Does Reiser resent any use of hdparm, or require different partition options to be set when using fdisk?

I'm just shooting in the dark here, because I really can't figure out what went wrong. I remember using Knoppix to edit fstab, changing some of the options available to hda3 and hda1 (/ and /boot, respectively), swapping out options like notail, noauto, etc. None worked.

Hmm, might this be udev-related? Coldplug not working properly; not having all devices needed to boot at boot time? According to the udev guide, the only devices needed for a proper boot are /dev/null and /dev/console, but the missing /dev/hda3 (or /dev/sda4) errors seem rather similar.

[Bob P]

onslaught, nightmorph, dedeaux, you guys need to use the search feature. i just searched on the unique terms in your posts and found identical problems that were resolved as kernel configuration and/or udev errors. that would seem to be a good place to start.

[dedeaux]

right-o! I figured as much -- heading home, it's Friday afternoon for me so I'll bang on this later in the weekend.

Maybe a note in the guide about this?

[Bob P]

right-o! I figured as much -- heading home, it's Friday afternoon for me so I'll bang on this later in the weekend.

Maybe a note in the guide about this?

there comes a point in time where i can't put everything into the guide. kernel configuration is something that is absolutely unique to every user's installation, and its really not practical to address.

failure on first boot should always be suspected as a kernel configuration problem. its not a problem with the guide.

regarding your problems -- all three of you are reporting rc_splash errors. that is a very unique term, and you should search for it. at present, you'll find only 19 threads related to rc_splash in the entire gentoo database. i took the time to read all 19 of these threads and found that the common denominator is that people are having problems with SATA and udev (widely recognized problems that are beyond the scope of the guide), or they are having problems with improper kernel configuration (again, beyond the scope of the guide).

i have never encountered these problems before, but after seeing you guys all reporting a common symptom, i took the initiative to search for the answer. if i can find an answer to a problem i've never heard of by searching the database, you guys should be able to find it too. unfortunately, i just don't have the time to act as a personal consultant, searching the database for solutions every time that someone encounters a configuration problem.

to everyone else who's reading this thread: no more personal messages with support requests, please.

[96140]

Okey-dokey, some possible fixes (for those of you with semi-working installations!).

Note: I don't know how helpful this will be to users without SATA drives; I certainly don't have something that nice, only your basic ATA100 drive, vintage 2001.

First, there might be a problem with versions of udev, baselayout, sysfsutils, etc, depending on ~x86 vs x86 in make.conf. This thread has a fix that doesn't require adding "~x86" to ACCEPT_KEYWORDS, but instead only unmasks the testing branches of those packages.

Next, there's always the tried-and-true official Gentoo handbook; this is the Configuring System (including fstab) section.

The first of the udev/rc_splash problem threads.

On the off-chance that /sbin & rc.conf might be to blame.

I found some other threads that weren't really relevant, as they were either devfs-related or used lilo, so those fixes wouldn't have been of use to this guide. And apparently, if a search turns up more than one results page, when I click page 2 (of 5), I get the glorious "No topics or posts met your criteria" page. Goody. The forums lost my search results.

Anyway, do tell if the first method works for any of you; it'll be helpful for this weekend's complete reinstall of Gentoo--because I just can't handle Windows XP's way of switching between user and superuser.

Oh, and make sure that you have filesystem support compiled directly into your kernel, not as modules. I know, I know, Gentoo Fundamentals. Certainly that wasn't the problem in my case; haven't made that mistake yet, but it's possible to just slip up when configuring the kernel.

[kimchi_sg]

to everyone else who's reading this thread: no more personal messages with support requests, please.

/me thinks you should go bug the moderators for an enhancement to the PM system - an auto-reply mod!

[Bob P]

/me thinks you should go bug the moderators for an enhancement to the PM system - an auto-reply mod!

This reminds me of a cartoon that I saw in the WSJ last week:

"Due to the excessively high call volume, we would like to remind you of the personal satisfaction that comes from solving your own problem."

[kimchi_sg]

"Due to the excessively high call volume, we would like to remind you of the personal satisfaction that comes from solving your own problem."

Try saying that Windows users.

Then again, don't you sleep at all? Isn't it like 4am in your part of the world?

I hope that having your own unique install tutorial has not turned you into a 24 hour forum posting machine.

[Bob P]

no, i never sleep. actually, it is only 02:00 here but i'm often on the board at 04:00.

in some respects i have turned into a 24-hour posting machine, but in fairness to you, i see that your post rate seems to be higher than mine!

[kimchi_sg]

no, i never sleep. actually, it is only 02:00 here but i'm often on the board at 04:00.

in some respects i have turned into a 24-hour posting machine, but in fairness to you, i see that your post rate seems to be higher than mine!

As the mods keep saying, postcount does not matter much.

I admit, I got all my postcount ++ from reminding n00bs to mark their topics as solved after they solved their problems.

P.S. Wanna badger the mods to make this a sticky, seeing that your stage 1-on-3 is as popular as it is?

[basiaf]

Yes. Don't use Reiser4 with this installation method. Although it is possible to perform a Stage 1/3 installation with Reiser4, quite a few deviations from the guide are necessary and the installation is subject to many potential pitfalls. My recommendation would be to drop Reiser 4. You can't do it with this Guide as it is written, and this Guide doesn't support it.

If you can't live without Reiser 4, you might want to send a PM to DrWoland. IIRC he developed a method of using Reiser 4 with this Guide and ran into many, many problems. He was thinking about writing a new guide to support Stage 1/3 with Reiser 4. That would be a good topic for another thread.

I actually used the guide to install on reiser4, but so far (almost a month uptime now) i didn't encounter any problems, everything works just fine. could you give details on what problems there may be or what i should take a closer look at ?

[kimchi_sg]

I actually used the guide to install on reiser4, but so far (almost a month uptime now) i didn't encounter any problems, everything works just fine. could you give details on what problems there may be or what i should take a closer look at ?

Reiser 4 is still not 100% stable for 100% of users yet.

Since this installation method is intended to be 100% stable for 100% of users, this obviously means that we cannot encourage or provide instructions for Reiser 4 users. Enough said.

[l1ltw1st]

Since I am a "newb" to gentoo, and seeing alot of others using this guide not wanting to type in "all" that information (read whining), I thought I might help, from one newb to another...

Download this free program called putty, install it on the machine you post in this forum and perform the followingon the livecd install machine

livecd root#passwd:
New UNIX password: (type in your fav password here)
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
livecd root#/etc/init.d/sshd start
*Generating Hostkey...

Obviously networking needs to be working, and you need to know the ip address, but now you can cut and paste from putty to the forum...

HTH

[Azzz]

Bob P I want to thank you for this howto and for your time for this little support thread
My system is fast like lightning because of you

[landrand]

I encountered the same problem as the other three fellas. Followed the guide exactly except used the Athlon stage3 tarball...and made slight modifications to the make.conf file to support the athlon.

Can * Mounting sysfs at /sys...
can't create lock file /etc/mtab~1145: Read-only file system (use -n flag to override) [ !! ]


* Checking root filesystem...
Failed to open the device '/dev/hda3': No such file or diectory

/sbin/rc: line 250: rc_splash: command not found
* Filesystem couldn't be fixed Sad [ !! ]

/dev/console: No such file or directory
Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D for normal startup):

[Cpoc]

Bob_P and Kimchi_sq:

I scrapped the guide from the point I was at and started over. Instead of using the stage3 listed in the guide I went ahead and downloaded the stage3 for i686 instead of x86 and all is fine. When I got to the steps where I was having the issue with gcc-config, the issue no longer existed. The install is moving along fine now. If I have any other problems I will post here. I just started the system rebuild ( 2nd part of step 7.2.4 ) about 40 minutes ago and its about 1/3 of the way through re-emerging the packages.

I did the exact same thing. You have to do exactly what the guide says and not add or miss any steps.
I have done 2 systems with Bob's guide and both were flawless.

The only think I would add is the guide does not go into detail about what kernel settings are required for gensplash. Either way afater reading the gensplash guide it was quickly fixed. Maybe a side note can be added to read gensplash how to and the kernel settings.

In fact I must have complied my kernel at least 6 times since the first install and it gets easier and easier every time. I keep on adding extra functions which needs to be enabled in the kernel.

I think that the developers should look into this and make Bob's method the standard method of every gentoo install.

You will end up with a very compact fast and optimized system running gentto. Sure it takes like a day to complie but it's worth it at the end. Also you have the ability to switch compliers for some software that just won't complie with the newer gcc.

I have Gentoo running on a P2 233 with 288 megs of ram and the system flies. This laptop was just sitting collecting dust cause it used to freeze all the time in 98 and was too slow in Win2000 or Xp. However I'm only using the command line due to the small hard disk of 3 gig also because I'm still a noob and I want to learn Linux the real way with no GUI. My next install will be on a P3 1 gig system which I do plan on haviing X mainly for web surfing via Firefox.

Slowly but surely I want to ditch Windows completly and make the switch to Linux for good.

[Sheepdogj15]

out of curiousity, has anyone attempted this on AMD64 and had a successful install?

some failed experiments have left me with a messy system, so i am thinking of reinstalling Gentoo. i may use this method. if possible, i would like to know in advance if there are any necessary deviations from the instructions in order to get it to work on 64bit.

[Momo_CCCP]

I have done a successful Stage3/1 install today.
Two notes :
-I had the /etc/mtab problem. It was quickly solved by a cp /proc/mounts /mnt/gentoo/etc/mtab (on the LiveCD), as many people seem to be affected by this problem, may I suggest you put a note in your howto reminding the users to check this.
- my root partition (jfs) wouldn't mount rw, until I discovered I had stupidly left the notail option in the fstab for it (jfs doesn't support notail, and therefore the partition wouldn't mount rw).
Other than that it went pretty fine and I now have a new shiny system (my previous one was crashed into oblivion by a massive file corruption caused by reiserfs, which is why I went for jfs (well-tried fs, eats less ram than xfs, and faster than ext3, plus I never tried it before and I like trying new software ).

[pbw]

Has anyone else had a verification problem with install-x86-universal-2004.3-r1.iso? I have downloaded from one of the Australian mirrors (PlanetMirror I think) and neither the md5sum nor the gpg signature verify. The iso length is 663459840 and it dowloaded without any reported problems using D4X.

[Bob P]

P.S. Wanna badger the mods to make this a sticky, seeing that your stage 1-on-3 is as popular as it is?

i hadn't thought about it. i think that the sticky threads are supposed to be for serious problems, aren't they? as it is, this thread is doesn't seem to have any probem staying on page 1.

[Bob P]

Yes. Don't use Reiser4 with this installation method. Although it is possible to perform a Stage 1/3 installation with Reiser4, quite a few deviations from the guide are necessary and the installation is subject to many potential pitfalls. My recommendation would be to drop Reiser 4. You can't do it with this Guide as it is written, and this Guide doesn't support it.

If you can't live without Reiser 4, you might want to send a PM to DrWoland. IIRC he developed a method of using Reiser 4 with this Guide and ran into many, many problems. He was thinking about writing a new guide to support Stage 1/3 with Reiser 4. That would be a good topic for another thread.

I actually used the guide to install on reiser4, but so far (almost a month uptime now) i didn't encounter any problems, everything works just fine. could you give details on what problems there may be or what i should take a closer look at ?

No, I can't help you because I have no experience with Reiser 4. Like kimchi-sg said, we're interested in building a stable system, and Reiser 4 is not stable enough to pass muster. I would advise against it.

If you really want to use Reiser 4, why not ask the fellow I mentioned who has experience with it? Unfortunately, even though it looks like I know alot, I don't have all of the answers.

If you do use this guide with a Reiser 4 installation, then remember that you are using an experimental file system that is not supported with this installation method.

[Bob P]

I did the exact same thing. You have to do exactly what the guide says and not add or miss any steps.
I have done 2 systems with Bob's guide and both were flawless.

my experience has been that the guide actually does work if you follow it. it is a guide that was written to cover the types of PCs that i have on-hand to tinker with -- 6 admittedly old pentium-based systems. i regret that i don't have experience with a wider variety of hardware, but i don't -- so the hardware advice that i can offer is limited.

this means that i can't offer any advice on SATA installations, AMD64 systems, etc.. i can only read about them in the forums and recommend that other users do the same. when people ask questions about problems that i have never encountered, the only advice that i can give them is to do what i would have to do to find the answer to their question: search the forums. (from what i have read, there seem to be serious problems right now with 64 bit Gentoo on AMD, so i would recommend against it. i would certainly recommend against using this guide to install on a platform where gentoo is known to have problems.)

The only think I would add is the guide does not go into detail about what kernel settings are required for gensplash. Either way afater reading the gensplash guide it was quickly fixed. Maybe a side note can be added to read gensplash how to and the kernel settings.

In fact I must have complied my kernel at least 6 times since the first install and it gets easier and easier every time. I keep on adding extra functions which needs to be enabled in the kernel.

the guide purposely remains mute on the subject of telling people how to configure their kernels for two reasons: first, its impossible to foretell what kind of drivers will be needed in any individual installation; second, this is an advanced installation method for experienced gentoo users -- it is not an installation manual for n00bs. as a prerequisite for using this guide, the user is expected to be competent in configuring their own kernel.

it makes me happy to read your post and to see that you had problems, that you had to compile your kernel 6 times before you got it right, and that you had the determination to stick with the problem until you solved it. that is exactly what everyone has to do, and i think that a lot of new linux users find configuring the kernel to be a very imposing task. most of them give up, either bailing out or expecting someone else to solve the problem for them instead of seeing the problem through. this guide isn't for everyone, and maybe those users who don't want to spend the effort properly configuring their kernel would be better off following the Gentoo Installation Handbook and using genkernel.

I think that the developers should look into this and make Bob's method the standard method of every gentoo install.

i don't agree with that. this installation method is a kludge workaround to solve some of the problems that are present in some of the Gentoo 2004.3 tarballs. if those issues are resolved in 2005.0, the Stage 1/3 installation Guide will be history.

I have Gentoo running on a P2 233 with 288 megs of ram and the system flies. This laptop was just sitting collecting dust cause it used to freeze all the time in 98 and was too slow in Win2000 or Xp. However I'm only using the command line due to the small hard disk of 3 gig also because I'm still a noob and I want to learn Linux the real way with no GUI. My next install will be on a P3 1 gig system which I do plan on haviing X mainly for web surfing via Firefox.

My experience has been that the Stage 1/3 installation method takes a loooong time on older hardware, but it the result is a surprisingly fast system. I have many old Pentium-class boxen that were rescued from a trip to the landfills, and given a new breath of life by a Gentoo Stage 1/3 installation. You're right, on those machines Win 98 has too many problems. Win 2k is not a bad solution, but XP is just too bloated to run on them. Gentoo makes them very useful. Granted, you need a modern HD subsystem and you really need to fill them up with RAM, but they become highly useful platforms under Gentoo.