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

[Bob P]

Gensplash vs. Bootsplash

I'm not sure exactly why bootsplash didn't work; I was very careful to follow the guide verbatum after the first slight mistake I made; I triple-checked everything after that. I only used the 1024x768 splash image, since that's my native resolution, and I saw no errors during the boot process. And yes, I had everything enabled in my kernel that should be there, and I was using vesa-tng, etc.

the bootsplash program is not an application that you are supposed to emerge as a part of the the Stage 1/3 installation method. the Guide references the program named gensplash, which is a completely different program. in case you weren't aware of it, these two programs are not at all compatible -- they block each other if you try to emerge them, and if you emerge the wrong one you will run into problems.

without any submission on your part regarding errors, i am at a total loss to guess why you would have problems with gensplash. once again, i'm left to taking shots in the dark. are you familiar with the difference between bootsplash and gensplash? if you have a problem with gensplash, my recommendation would be to look at the output of dmesg and to look into the Gensplash How-To, or if your're using bootsplash, to take a look at The Gentoo Framebuffer, Bottsplash & Grubsplash How-To or its support thread.

fwiw, the vesafb-tng driver does not work with all varieties of hardware and some video cards just bork with it. troubleshooting the framebuffer devices is really beyond the scope of this thread. they're just a cosmetic add-on to the Stage 1/3 Guide, and they have their own associated problems and their own support threads. with that said, here's another shot in the dark -- remove any other video drivers from your kernel -- they will cause a conflict with vesafb and if they are present the framebuffer will never work.

[Bob P]

That was the least of my worries...shortly after this, after watching the normal mesages flash past, I hit the big error: hda3 (where everything but /boot is, as per the Guide) wasn't found. I found this ironic, because the previous boot lines talked about mounting it, reading files from it, etc. Heck, I'm pretty sure the system has to pull files from it. I think this might be a ReiserFS problem; I've noticed that with any Linux distribution I put on my computer, I have much more grief when using ReiserFS. [emphasis added] That's why, for my first installation, I ended up using the slower ext3 FS; I will be retrying in the next couple of days using ext3--I only hope that I don't lose much of the speed that this method is supposed to bring.

you have the same problems with any Linux distro that you put on your computer? well if that is the case, it seems that the problem is not attributable to the Stage 1/3 Guide. it sounds like you have a hardware compatability problem.

[96140]

Gensplash vs. Bootsplash
the bootsplash program is not an application that you are supposed to emerge as a part of the the Stage 1/3 installation method. the Guide references the program named gensplash, which is a completely different program. in case you weren't aware of it, these two programs are not at all compatible -- they block each other if you try to emerge them, and if you emerge the wrong one you will run into problems.

fwiw, the vesafb-tng driver does not work with all varieties of hardware and some video cards just bork with it. troubleshooting the framebuffer devices is really beyond the scope of this thread. they're just a cosmetic add-on to the Stage 1/3 Guide, and they have their own associated problems and their own support threads. with that said, here's another shot in the dark -- remove any other video drivers from your kernel -- they will cause a conflict with vesafb and if they are present the framebuffer will never work.

I'm sorry; you're right. I carelessly used them as synonyms. I meant the nice image that's supposed to wrap around the scrolling text at system boot; I thought that was the bootsplash; I guess that's gensplash. I didn't emerge anything extra; I followed the procedures described in the guide, but I only used the 1024x768 image, so I left out the irrelevant bits of splash_geninitramfs and grub.conf (wrong resolutions). So while I had a nice image for the initial kernel selection screen, nothing appeared after that, although my screen did at least default to 1024x768, as I'd specified at some point. I was just mistaken about the labels for which image. ^_^

I've never had any trouble with vesa-tng in the past; I used it for my first install to get the default background for the grub boot screen (to select the kernel), so I don't think the problem is there.

[96140]

you have the same problems with any Linux distro that you put on your computer? well if that is the case, it seems that the problem is not attributable to the Stage 1/3 Guide. it sounds like you have a hardware compatability problem.

Yeah; I believe it was why I could never get a working desktop in Ubuntu; there were several messages about various files/devices not being found (beyond the usual errors that can be expected from X.org). I dunno what it is about this hard drive; I've never had any problems with it; it's sound and decently speedy (for a laptop drive), and has no problem with any of the hdparm settings I throw at it (I looked up its detailed specs at the manufacturer's site). But at some point information got lost, I expect--and I know it wasn't in grub.conf or fstab. I remember firing up links2 and storing my last dmesg somewhere online; I just can't quite remember where, otherwise I could be more specific. Apologies!. Give me another day to get started on a reinstall. I know the LiveCD is good, and all the md5 checks are good, so the problem is not in the files, I don't think. My hard drive works perfectly with any filesystem other than ReiserFS (and that might work out well too, if only I can convince Gentoo that the partition it just mounted the system from actually does exist). Hey, troubleshooting...that's a learning experience, no?

[dedeaux]

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.

[Bob P]

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.

this is important, so it gets colorized type:

well, getting the right tarball is important, but you should be able to get by using the specified tarball in the guide, regardless of whether or not you had a later x86 processor. they key is that you have to use the flags mentioned in the sample make.conf and not change them until you are told to do so.

the guide was actually designed with a generic pentium-class tarball and a generic set of pentium-class compiler options and cflags intentionally -- it was done as a failsafe method to prevent people from borking their systems.

to get caught by the problem that you encountered, i think that you would have to make two errors at the same time -- you would have to download the wrong tarball for your architecture, and you would have to prematurely issue architecture-specific cflags for a later processor that were not recognizable by the x86 tarball's compiler. THAT is exactly why the x86 tarball is used in the example, along with generic x86 cflags for intel pentium -- no matter what class of Pentium machine you are using, the tarball and the flags are compatible with your CPU and the Guide will work if you follow it. OTOH, if you start to issue flags and commands that require a later processor, you must supply the correct processor-specific tarball or you will bork your system. (just for reference: i haven't actually tried to make that mistake (!), but i think that is how it would work!)

i think that the guide makes it pretty clear that you should NOT edit cflags or compiler settings in section 7.1. if you had followed the guide (and not made those architecture specific changes before being told to do so in section 7.2.1) then you should not have had this problem. maybe the guide isn't sufficiently clear on that point.

the next time that you have a problem like that, be sure to post the contents of emerge info - it will tell us thing we need to know about your system - like your processor and your flag settings. by supplying that information it would have been easier to diagnose your problem a long time ago.

[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.