Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" install bug 1
Problem one was a "SYSLINUX – Unknown keyword in configuration file" error.What I'd decided to do was to boot from USB. So, as the Ubuntu download page recommends btw, what I did was to use the the Ubuntu "Create bootable USB Key" feature. Only I used it under my existing Ubuntu installation, which was 9.10. There's an Ubuntu bug description here, but in summary the problem is that the version of Syslinux (which is what actually boots the USB key) that old versions of Ubuntu place on the USB key isn't compatible with the configuration file that comes with the 10.10 ISO image. So instant crash. Irritatingly enough, looking at Ubuntu's own bug tracker, this was identified as a bug back in July, but nobody bothered to fix it, although I'd rate it as a showstopper. So far as I can tell, there are two solutions:
- Create your Ubuntu 10.10 bootable USB key using Ubuntu 10.10. That's a bit of a catch-22 situation, but it may be an option for people with access to a friend's Ubuntu 10.10 installation or whatever.
- Edit the /syslinux/syslinux.cfg on the USB key to remove the "ui" keyword, which is what causes the problem. This is the solution that I used.
Problem two was a crash in the very early part of the install.The symptoms of this are:
- If you're in the graphical install mode (the full screen purple screen), the install just hangs. The little dots keep moving, but nothing happens.
- If you hit esc, you get a "getpwuid_r(): failed due to unknown user id (0)" message, as documented in this Ubuntu bug report.Again irritatingly, this bug is known. Even more irritatingly, as the bug report makes clear, the error message is entirely misleading - it can result from any number of underlying problems.
- So, what you have to do is to get a real error message. The way to do that is to keep Ubuntu out of the graphical install, and have it give text error messages. You do that by hitting F6 as soon as the purple screen comes up, then editing the command line to remove "quiet" and "splash". Then press enter to have your new command line run.
- What I then got was the real error: "Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0".If you know that fd0 is the floppy disk, this tells you what you need to know. Turns out that although the machine doesn't have a Floppy, I had "Floppy disk" enabled in the BIOS of the motherboard (which is the default), and Ubuntu just can't deal with a non-existent floppy. Disabling the Floppy in BIOS solved the problem.
3 comments:
1.1 no, you can use 10.04. I made mine that way.
2.1 Boots fine, doesn't hang.
2.2 I haven't tried that.
2.3 Plymouth (splash) from both CD and USB work perfectly here (and I've used it on my macbook, my friends' laptops and a school HP laptop)
2.4 Nope. I did get those messages on shutdown but I'm not sure if they were about fd0. However, they are just *warnings*. Press enter and it reboots.
I have, however, found two bugs during the installation: choosing to install alongside another OS (not in advanced partitioning) *will* use the whole disk (and I'm guessing so does the option to use the whole disk,) and if you click more than two keyboard mappings while browsing through them the right half showing the available ones for that region will become stuck and you won't be able to choose a correct mapping and the installer won't continue.
These last bugs were extremely disappointing, but so far I'm very happy with maverick.
Thank you very much. I was having same problem. It's worked and save the day.Post a Comment
I installed the 10.10 from USB stick which I prepared by http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/. I fed it the installation CD image and the USB stick was created correctly.
--- Ferda
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