RC 1.1 troubles (ignore last post)

Hi all, Sorry for that last post. I accidentally sent it before it was complete! Anyway, I burned the 1.1 RC1 ISO to a blank medium with cdrecord -data dev=/dev/hdc grml_1.1-rc1.iso The MD5 checksum on the ISO is correct, and the recording process finished successfully. I can mount the CD-ROM, and all the requisite files are present.
I booted the system, with the command-line grml swspeak But instead of booting the CD, I was presented with my hard-disk installation of grml. It was as though I did not have a bootable disk in the drive. So I found my grml 1.0 medium, and rebooted. That time, I booted into the live CD, as expected.
I tried burning the 1.1 RC1 ISO to a second medium, just in case the first was damaged. That didn't work.
It seems unusual that the 1.1 RC1 disk won't boot, while the 1.0 CD will boot. I'm running without a monitor, so the boot sequence isn't visible. I should probably ask someone to connect a monitor and read the boot sequence to me, but that's a big hastle. Am I missing something here? Is anyone else booting the 1.1 RC1 live CD with speech?
-- Chris

Hi Chris!
On 01.01.2008 22:05, C.M. Brannon wrote:
It seems unusual that the 1.1 RC1 disk won't boot, while the 1.0 CD will boot. I'm running without a monitor, so the boot sequence isn't visible. I should probably ask someone to connect a monitor and read the boot sequence to me, but that's a big hastle. Am I missing something here? Is anyone else booting the 1.1 RC1 live CD with speech?
I think can confirm you're problem but I believe that the problem is unreleated to swspeak. See http://bts.grml.org/grml/issue348 for more details.
Mika and I tried a few things to solve this issue but we were running out of good ideas.
I first encounted this booting problem with 1.0-5 which was a devel-release[1]. I would be glad if you can test that release too to confirm our problem.
I by now think it has something to do with the initrd but unfortunatly I had no time to track it down...
I also just removed my CD-ROM-Drive from my notebook to add the model for reference. It's a TEAC DW-224E (-A35).
I am looking forward to solve this problem together.
Wish you (and everybody who reads this) a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2008!
Greetings, - Darsha

* D. Pathirana dpat@syn-net.org [20080103 13:32]:
On 01.01.2008 22:05, C.M. Brannon wrote:
It seems unusual that the 1.1 RC1 disk won't boot, while the 1.0 CD will boot. I'm running without a monitor, so the boot sequence isn't visible. I should probably ask someone to connect a monitor and read the boot sequence to me, but that's a big hastle. Am I missing something here? Is anyone else booting the 1.1 RC1 live CD with speech?
I think can confirm you're problem but I believe that the problem is unreleated to swspeak. See http://bts.grml.org/grml/issue348 for more details.
I don't think that your problems have something in common, due to:
| But instead of booting the CD, I was presented with my hard-disk | installation of grml.
IMHO on Chris' system the CD is never ever being read and therefore his harddisk system is booted instead.
Chris, any chance you can boot your system with someone in front who sees whether the grml bootscreen is present at all? swspeak itself should work just fine, I got some reports that it's working great - I'll test it on my own as well as soon as I've some spare minutes. Would be great to know at which stage your system fails to boot.
Darsha: regarding your problem I think it's either a kernel issue, a problem with the initrd or with syslinux - let's track the problem down together.
regards, -mika-

On 03.01.2008 13:42, Michael Prokop wrote:
- D. Pathirana dpat@syn-net.org [20080103 13:32]:
On 01.01.2008 22:05, C.M. Brannon wrote:
It seems unusual that the 1.1 RC1 disk won't boot, while the 1.0 CD will boot. I'm running without a monitor, so the boot sequence isn't visible. I should probably ask someone to connect a monitor and read the boot sequence to me, but that's a big hastle. Am I missing something here? Is anyone else booting the 1.1 RC1 live CD with speech?
I think can confirm you're problem but I believe that the problem is unreleated to swspeak. See http://bts.grml.org/grml/issue348 for more details.
I don't think that your problems have something in common, due to:
| But instead of booting the CD, I was presented with my hard-disk | installation of grml.
IMHO on Chris' system the CD is never ever being read and therefore his harddisk system is booted instead.
Yeah! I at first thought that too but as Chris was able to boot with grml-medium 1.0 (NOT sid_20071126 which also did not work for me) and as he was able to enter "grml swspeak" at the boot prompt there could be some similarities...
But let's wait for Chirs' answer. We will see...
Darsha: regarding your problem I think it's either a kernel issue, a problem with the initrd or with syslinux - let's track the problem down together.
Yes! That would be really fine. Let's see if we can find a date together...
Greetings, - Darsha

Michael Prokop mika@grml.org writes:
I don't think that your problems have something in common, due to: IMHO on Chris' system the CD is never ever being read and therefore his harddisk system is booted instead.
Chris, any chance you can boot your system with someone in front who sees whether the grml bootscreen is present at all? swspeak itself
Hi Mika, Yes this seems like a different issue from #348 for the reason you mentioned. OTOH, Darsha's issue #348 seems to lead to a hung boot process. My boot process isn't hung; it just boots from the wrong medium <grin>. I wonder whether there is some conflict between isolinux and my BIOS. PS. Will try to boot grml with sighted assistance later today!
Thanks, -- Chris

Michael Prokop mika@grml.org writes:
Chris, any chance you can boot your system with someone in front who sees whether the grml bootscreen is present at all? swspeak itself
Hi Mika, I got someone to read the boot sequence, and we don't see the boot screen for the live-CD. The first screen we see is that of the bootloader for the HD installation. (E.G., the first image is 2.6.20-grml).
Have a nice day, -- Chris

* C.M. Brannon cmbrannon@cox.net [20080104 03:26]:
Michael Prokop mika@grml.org writes:
Chris, any chance you can boot your system with someone in front who sees whether the grml bootscreen is present at all? swspeak itself
I got someone to read the boot sequence, and we don't see the boot screen for the live-CD. The first screen we see is that of the bootloader for the HD installation. (E.G., the first image is 2.6.20-grml).
Are you sure the ISO on your CD is *really* OK? Any chance to test it on another system to check whether it basically works at all?
regards, -mika-

Michael Prokop mika@grml.org writes:
Are you sure the ISO on your CD is *really* OK? Any chance to test it on another system to check whether it basically works at all?
Well, all of the MD5 digests were verified. I even did md5sum -c /mnt/cdrom/grml/md5sums and all files were OK. I tried it on another machine, and it wouldn't boot. So it seems that my disk must be defective, even though the contents of the filesystem are OK according to md5sum. I can think of several culprits. For one, I use cheap generic CD-R media. I'll try this process again, with some higher-quality disks.
Have a great day, -- Chris

* C.M. Brannon cmbrannon@cox.net [20080107 21:31]:
Michael Prokop mika@grml.org writes:
Are you sure the ISO on your CD is *really* OK? Any chance to test it on another system to check whether it basically works at all?
Well, all of the MD5 digests were verified. I even did md5sum -c /mnt/cdrom/grml/md5sums and all files were OK. I tried it on another machine, and it wouldn't boot. So it seems that my disk must be defective, even though the contents of the filesystem are OK according to md5sum. I can think of several culprits. For one, I use cheap generic CD-R media. I'll try this process again, with some higher-quality disks.
Use readcd (something like "readcd -c2scan dev=/dev/cdrom") for checking the CD. md5sums sadly just aren't enough. :((
I strongly recommend the use of USB pens instead of CD-Rs if possible, otherwise fall back to higher quality CDs which are known to work fine with your CD burner. That's what we as grml developers do as well. :)
regards, -mika-

Michael Prokop mika@grml.org writes:
Use readcd (something like "readcd -c2scan dev=/dev/cdrom") for checking the CD. md5sums sadly just aren't enough. :((
I get two "hard read errors". They occur in the last 2 sectors of the disk (317059 and 317060).
I strongly recommend the use of USB pens instead of CD-Rs if possible, otherwise fall back to higher quality CDs which are known to work fine with your CD burner. That's what we as grml developers do as well. :)
I think another option (for me, at least) is btmgr. This box has a floppy drive on it. Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is that the bootable CD is not the infallible medium that I thought it was <grin>.
Thank you for the assistance, -- Chris
Teilnehmer (3)
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cmbrannon@cox.net
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D. Pathirana
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Michael Prokop