[Cialug] Ubuntu Installation Problems

[Zachary Kotlarek]

On Oct 11, 2014, at 9:22 AM, Todd Pierce <toddcpierce at gmail.com> wrote:

> First of all, no versions of Ubuntu seem to manage to install GRUB, but 14
> managed to put LILO on.  The entire installation procedure goes fine but
> then when I boot I end up with this "Gave up waiting for root device" error
> since "/dev/sdg1" doesn't exist.


The error you’re seeing at boot is the bootloader correctly loading the kernel using BIOS disk references but the kernel waiting around for a /dev disk path that never appears. Usually this is because the wrong path is specified or because you don’t have the necessary drivers loaded for the disk. You mentioned that many distros don’t support the NIC, are you sure they support the disk HBA in the initramfs?

Also note that /dev/sdg1 is an unlikely name for a boot disk unless the machine has several other disks attached. Assuming you don’t have a bunch of disks I suspect that’s just incorrectly detected, so configuring the right path and telling LILO about it might be sufficient to get you going. That might also be the reason GRUB won’t install — it can’t figure out how to configure GRUB because your disk references are unusual.

Do you end up in a shell after that error; most distros with an initramfs will drop you into the most useful environment they can. If so, take a look at /dev/sd* and see what the initramfs thinks your disk is called, of if anything even shows up — that’s the name you need to configure in the bootloader. If you don’t end up in a shell I’d start by guessing /dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1 just to see if that works.

--

You can probably also get grub to install manually; I would guess the failure is in the configuration stage and not the copying files around bit. If you at least get the files on-disk and run `grub` you’ll get to a command prompt where you can:
	find /boot/grub/stage1
which will tell you which partition(s) have /boot/grub/stage1 installed on them. Then you can do:
	root (hd0,0)
	setup(hd0)
	setup(hd0,0)
to install the stage1 and stage2 bootloaders to that disk and partition respectively, adjusting the (hd0*) bits to match whatever disk GRUB identified. If GRUB can’t find anything I’d again start with (hd0,0) and (hd1,0) just to see if they work.

Once you get GRUB working you’ll have the ability to change the kernel command-line parameters without booting back to a rescue disk, which should make the rest of the process much faster. Eventually you need to update /boot/grub/menu.lst to make any changes permanent but you can just hit “e" while GRUB is on-screen during boot to temporarily edit the parameters it passes to the kernel.

	Zach

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