LMDE 201303 RC ISO Issues

[0xnak]

I ran into a large issue while using one of these, so I figured I would start a general thread for others to bring up/discuss their own issues.

The issue I am seeing is with the Cinnamon 64bit spin (haven't had a chance to test others yet.) It boots fine, live environment is stable, gparted works, it seemingly installs fine, but at the end when it asks if you would like to restart to start using your new system a problem arises. Upon clicking yes, it drops to cli (which is expected), the disc tray opens, but the 'remove disk and press enter to continue' prompt never comes up. The system hangs and nothing seems get around that. After a hard reboot, grub loads fine, mdm comes up, but I can't login with the user I created during install under any type of session. I just get the incorrect un/pw error.

I tried the process again, with a freshly burned iso from a different mirror (md5 checked out) and had the same result.

I then tried again, but this time picking 'compatibility mode' when booting the livecd. The only difference I saw was that after install, I was correctly presented with the 'remove disk and press enter to continue' prompt and the system rebooted on it's own, but once it got to mdm, I still couldn't login at all.

Like I said, I haven't tried this on any of the other spins, but I will tomorrow when I have more time. The only hunch I have as of now is that I am using a fairly new nvidia card and they are always suspects when weird issues pop up (although it didn't cause any issues with the current, stable iso.) I will test this hunch tomorrow as well. In the meantime, has anyone else run into this?

Edit: I won't be able to do more thorough testing until later, but I wanted to note that the issue above is not something that I experienced with the previous ISOs, regardless of version, on a fresh install or after installing UP6. Later, I'll test the rest of the ISOs. I'll also swap out my nvidia card for an ati (or onboard intel) to try to rule out or confirm that this in an nvidia issue. Has anyone else had any similar or successful experiences with the new ISOs?

[X.LINK]

Posting here because of relevance to this thread and since original one was closed:

I don't understand why the RC isos became so.

I mean, there's still some untested cases and they also has some failures, like EFI installation (every new computers has one !), home folder encryption and plymouth text theme, etc.

Furthermore, there's some lacks like gnome-disk-utility (palimpsest, which is the easiest way to unmount weird devices properly)
and vlc (replaced ?!? Where are the feedback from mint 14 ?).

On another subject, does the 3D for Intel HD 3000 and HD 4000 have been fixed ?
There's a lot of glitches on Unigine Heaven benchmark, Minecraft and most games tested, mostly texture ones.

Do these new isos boot on AMD apu's ? I had tested LMDE's build 22/04/2012 on a llano platform (AMD's first generation of apu) and couldn't boot while Backtrack R3 did fine.


It's just so strange, I do prefer having a full stable iso when it's done than a buggy one like ubuntu (release on time schedule).
I'm saying so because I plan to deploy it on a lot of computers (university IT department, family, friends and more...) and hope for
official explanations.

By the way, thanks for the whole work ! It became a pleasure to use debian since LMDE exists !

[adie]

I am seeing a similar issue when using a USB stick of the 201303 RC on a Samsung Chronos 7, which has one of these dual graphics cards (GeForce GT630M and internal Intel). The installation finishes, but does not reboot, but locks up with a message "Glib-Warning getpwuid_r() failed due to unknown user ID (0)".
The live stick seems to work fine, but during the installation the system was freezing a few times, which forced me to reboot (no keyboard reactions anymore).

Besides of that it is not possible during the normal installation to use different drives for "/" and "/home" as it was announced and works fine with a Mint14 installation. The Chronos has a small SSD (sdb), which I wanted to use for "/" and the main harddisk (sda) for "/home".

[0xnak]

X, I agree with some of your sentiments. I'm not really all that familiar with the testing process as I got added to the testing team after these ISOs went RC, but I'm looking forward to getting involved next time around. Anyway, I think more eyes/volunteers could be helpful.

[0xnak]

... a Samsung Chronos 7, which has one of these dual graphics cards (GeForce GT630M and internal Intel)...

so that's another +1 for possible nvidia-related weirdness. Checking the community site, it looks like the nvidia chipset test case went untested on all 4 ISOs...

[monkeyboy]

Two issues:

Install hung at reboot (no error messages) after USB stick install, however worked fine after a long wait and forced reboot.

DDM hung on Nvidia install, no error messages.

Thanks to all the folks who are working on the process.

LMDE Cinnamon 64
Nvidia 8600 GT Dual SLI
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad-Core Processor, 2.40 GHz
4 GB Memory
Tri boot along with XP, Mint 14 XFCE

[zerozero]

i still had no change to test the new respins (planning in doing it tomorrow: day off) but anyway i want to address some questions raised here

like EFI installation

Clem said that efi support wasn't added at live-installer this time (remember that this is probably the first time live-installer has new features since lmde was released)

and vlc (replaced ?!? Where are the feedback from mint 14 ?).

and before mint was accused of bloated because shipped 4-5 players pre-installed don't get me wrong tho i also like vlc a lot but since several respins it wasn't working in the live session and totem-mozilla is more stable than browser-plugin-vlc

On another subject, does the 3D for Intel HD 3000 and HD 4000 have been fixed ?

i'm not aware of this issue but know that the kernel shipped with this iso (linux-image-3.2.0-4 - 3.2.35-2) still doesn't have full support for sandy and ivy bridge cpus (the dreadful freezes);
there's a new kernel soon migrating to sid with backported support for those cpus but this is something that is out of mint's team scope (i think)

but locks up with a message "Glib-Warning getpwuid_r() failed due to unknown user ID (0)".

this is a plymount bug but "shouldn't" lock the system, i see the same for a split second and then the system halts.

which has one of these dual graphics cards (GeForce GT630M and internal Intel)

optimus cards are a pain and on top of that this kernel/xorg/mesa stack is old (in linux time), probably older than the hardware you are installing into.

Besides of that it is not possible during the normal installation to use different drives for "/" and "/home" as it was announced

this definitely shouldn't be like this; this feature was added to live-installer before the respins see here

DDM hung on Nvidia install, no error messages.

Thanks to all the folks who are working on the process.

LMDE Cinnamon 64
Nvidia 8600 GT Dual SLI

is a localised install?

[0xnak]

I am in the process of doing some more testing and wanted to provide a brief update. Unfortunately, I've not been able to get a working system yet with this spin. So far, I tried with on-board graphics (intel hd3000) as well as swapping out the nvidia card I originally used with an ati. In each case, I saw the same exact thing I mentioned in my original post. I suppose this rules out nvidia weirdness (at least in my case.) I'd also like to add that I am not seeing this issue in the older lmde ISOs, the most recent wheezy iso, or the main mint ISOs. I have one more hunch I want to investigate with the Cin 64 ISO and then I'm going to give the mate spin a try and see if I have any luck there. I'll report back shortly. If any devs (or anyone interested in specs,logs, config files) see this, let me know and I can provide whatever technical detail you need.

Edit: The only other hunch I had didn't have any effect on the outcome. Despite what I try, and I've tried everything I can think of, the same issue I originally described keeps happening. Trying mate now...

Edit 2: SUCCESS! I ended up continuing to play around with the Cinnamon 64bit ISO instead of jumping to mate and I ended up solving the issue that has been plaguing me. It's a strange one...I basically just started trying weird things in a last ditch effort to get things to work. First, I tried using a longer username, as I use one that is only 3 characters and I remembered that there was a strange bug in Fuduntu regarding that (yeah, I was grasping at straws.) That made no difference, so I moved on to my password and that was the culprit. I was using a password with two ||'s (pipes) in it and for whatever reason, that was breaking everything. I did a new install specifying a password of just 'password' and voila, after the install when it prompted for restart, it dropped to the pretty splash screen version of the 'please remove disc from tray and press enter to continue' and then continued to reboot on its own. Afterwards, I was able to login just fine. I'm not really sure why this was an issue, as I've been using a similar password, containing two ||'s on every distro I've hopped around to (including previous versions of lmde) with no issue at all. Stranger still, after I login to the fresh system, I can update the password to one containing |'s without issue, reboot without issue, login, etc. So that being said, the issue of ||'s (pipes) in a password only appears to be an issue/bug within the installer. Anyone know why? What has changed? This wasn't a problem in the old ISOs.

If someone else can give this a try just to confirm my findings, it would be very much appreciated. Just do a fresh install (in a vm is fine) and when you are setting up the user, use ||'s (pipes) in the password. Let me know if things get wonky for you as well.

[monkeyboy]

Hey zerozero
You asked if it was a localized install, to which I must reply no. it was a truly a boring default install for the most part. I am still looking for a solution and if i find one i will post back. Thanks

[0xnak]

This could be a non-issue, but I noticed that on a fresh install, there are 168 packages in the installed (local or obsolete) status. They obviously weren't installed manually/locally, so I guess this means they aren't in the repo's? Is this normal?

Also, one other issue I found is with Software Manager (mintinstall.) I can't run it. At launch, it asks for the admin password, and when I put in my user password, it says it is wrong. I am in the sudo and admin group and can launch synaptic just fine with my password. Very strange...

Edit: The software manager issue is also related to || (pipes) in passwords. Again, strange that this is a non-issue in the current, stable iso at install or after UP6...I guess I'll have to pick a new favorite special character

Edit 2: Playing around with other special characters in user passwords, !! (exclamation points/bangs) also seem to cause the same breakages (installer/post install reboot and Software Manager.) I'll play around with other characters tomorrow and report back.

Edit 3: This seems like sort of a big deal. Looks like using any special characters in passwords causes the problems mentioned initially/above (installer/post install reboot and Software Manager.) So far, I've tried using |, !, @, #, $, and ?. Same issues across the board. Can someone else confirm this?

Edit 4: I found another issue...it seems that, at least in my case, the system is un-bootable with external/usb drives attached to it. I get the following errors:

Code: Select all

[4.939773] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[4.939860] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through


I get about 12 lines of that, for both of my usb drives (sdb and sdc), then the system just hangs. If I disconnect the drives, it boots fine.

I then decided to give the mate spin a try to see if all of these same issues are present. It looks like the special characters in passwords is a problem there as well, but I could only confirm that it breaks the post-install reboot. The mate spin gave me a non-working X upon manual reboot. Looks like my nvidia card is the problem.

Code: Select all

FATAL: Module nvidia not found.
Fatal server error: No screens found.


Not sure why these were marked for stable RC without the nvidia test cases being tested...

To recap-
Cinnamon ISO issues:
-special characters in user passwords cause breakages
-o̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶r̶e̶s̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶a̶l̶l̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶a̶r̶g̶e̶ ̶n̶u̶m̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶a̶c̶k̶a̶g̶e̶s̶ ̶(̶1̶6̶8̶)̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶ ̶'̶I̶n̶s̶t̶a̶l̶l̶e̶d̶(̶l̶o̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶o̶b̶s̶o̶l̶e̶t̶e̶)̶'̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶t̶u̶s̶
---it looks like this behavior was present in the old ISO too (201 packages) so I guess this isn't an issue.
-having external/usb drives attached causes the system (at least in my case) to freeze at boot

Mate ISO issues:
-same special-characters-in-passwords problem
-after an install, X Server crashes with nvidia cards (at least in my case)

I'm going to wipe and re-install the old ISO as I wasn't seeing these issues there. I'll continue testing the new ones in VM's...

[Jesse654]

...
Edit: The software manager issue is also related to || (pipes) in passwords. Again, strange that this is a non-issue in the current, stable iso at install or after UP6...I guess I'll have to pick a new favorite special character

Edit 2: Playing around with other special characters in user passwords, !! (exclamation points/bangs) also seem to cause the same breakages (installer/post install reboot and Software Manager.) I'll play around with other characters tomorrow and report back.

Edit 3: This seems like sort of a big deal. Looks like using any special characters in passwords causes the problems mentioned initially/above (installer/post install reboot and Software Manager.) So far, I've tried using |, !, @, #, $, and ?. Same issues across the board. Can someone else confirm this?
...

Confirmed. This seems to be the same issue I found with the unofficial LMDE KDE UP6:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=121058&start=100#p689890
I have not tried the official LMDE MATE or Cinnamon editions at this point.

[Jesse654]

DDM hung on Nvidia install, no error messages.
...

@monkeyboy, you may already be aware, but if you are interested in getting/giving debug info on DDM, there is a thread:
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=113559
with instructions on how to get/give debug info.

[cpatrick08]

My wireless goes in and out with the Cinnamon 64 bit edition I was wondering if anybody else had this issue. linked is my system info http://ubuntuone.com/2aNFOuslmUykr9XmSbDhaQ wireless card is Intel WiFi Link 5100

[Mr. B]

So far i only had one issue since i installed the dev/test iso which is now the RC. It's with the Cinnamon edition that froze all of the sudden so i had to do a hard shutdown. This occured only once so far.

Installation went fine no problems at all even with rebooting, also DDM installed the nVidia driver as should, no problems or whatsoever. Runs great so far.

[0xnak]

So far i only had one issue since i installed the dev/test iso which is now the RC. It's with the Cinnamon edition that froze all of the sudden so i had to do a hard shutdown. This occured only once so far.

Installation went fine no problems at all even with rebooting, also DDM installed the nVidia driver as should, no problems or whatsoever. Runs great so far.

Did you try using a password with any special characters?

[cpatrick08]

My wireless goes in and out with the Cinnamon 64 bit edition I was wondering if anybody else had this issue. linked is my system info http://ubuntuone.com/2aNFOuslmUykr9XmSbDhaQ wireless card is Intel WiFi Link 5100

problem is solved it fixed itself

[wavespot]

If someone else can give this a try just to confirm my findings, it would be very much appreciated. Just do a fresh install (in a vm is fine) and when you are setting up the user, use ||'s (pipes) in the password. Let me know if things get wonky for you as well.

Thanks for reporting that, we'll try to fix it for the release version

[Mr. B]

So far i only had one issue since i installed the dev/test iso which is now the RC. It's with the Cinnamon edition that froze all of the sudden so i had to do a hard shutdown. This occured only once so far.

Installation went fine no problems at all even with rebooting, also DDM installed the nVidia driver as should, no problems or whatsoever. Runs great so far.

Did you try using a password with any special characters?

Sorry, must be me but i don't get what you mean.

All i pointed out was that i had a desktop freeze once and that the system runs great so far.

[0xnak]

See my posts above. I've had 2 system breaking issues, one of which has been confirmed by multiple others: If you use any special characters in your user password, multiple breakages occur.

[Mr. B]

See my posts above. I've had 2 system breaking issues, one of which has been confirmed by multiple others: If you use any special characters in your user password, multiple breakages occur.

Sorry, my bad. But no, i don't use any special characters in my user password.