FC 3 Install Success! - NOT

[Jonathan Berry]

On Apr 4, 2005 6:11 PM, David Curry <dsccable at comcast.net> wrote:
> Mark Mecum (teknowiztx) wrote:
> 
> >Thanks for the suggestions.  I am booting in runlevel 3 and am logging on without the respawning messages.
> >
> >After a little more fishing I have found that there are no files/directories installed in /usr or /var (and probably other places) which appears to be why so much (and probably the x11 serv) is broken.

This is certainly a problem.  Did you configure these as separate
partitions?  That would explain the "cannot touch" errors you got. 
There is a lot that is located in /usr though, including X.  What do
the following commands produce:
$ cat /etc/fstab
# fdisk -l
The fdisk command must be done as root.  If it is not the case that
these are separate partitions and just not mounted, then something
went horribly wrong in the install.

> >That leaves me with several outstanding key questions:
> >
> >1] How did the installer leave me with such a screwed up mess?
>
> Good question.  I am running FC2 in part due to difficulties in
> successfully installing FC3 directly.  I made three attempts with each
> proceeding just a bit further but never progressing beyond a report to
> stdout that oo.o installation was in progress.  FC2 installed without
> any problems after which the FC3 distribution isos would successfully
> upgrade the system to FC3.  But, I was a bit leery of FC3 by that time
> and the

I had no trouble with the FC3 install.  Installed over an FC2 install
(did not upgrade).  All went well.  David, I would suspect media
problems if things froze at OO.o.  If you are interested in upgrading
(though, there is not much point with FC4 coming out so soon) then I
would check the media and then not install OO.o initially.

> >2] Should I report this as a bug on bugzilla?
> 
> A bug report would likely be welcomed if the phenomenon were repeated on
> a second installation attempt.  Might be welcomed on the basis of your
> first installation effort.

All bug reports are welcome I'm sure.  If you can remember exactly
what you did, then that might be helpful.  If you can repeat your
problems, that is even better (well, it's not good there is a bug, but
at least it's a dependable bug ;)).  Is this a machine that you could
safely experiment with re-installing and seeing if it happens again? 
If you cannot get things going, then you may need to do that anyway. 
Please back up any needed data before, though :).

> >3] Are all of the startup messages that are sent to the screen recorded in a file for later viewing? (many of them go by too fast to catch)

Really?  You must be getting a lot of errors, then.  It really
shouldn't go by that fast.

> As root,  you might try
> 
> # cd /var/log
> cat boot.log | less
> 
> and
> 
> cat messages | less

There is also the dmesg file ("cat dmesg | less") in that directory
and the dmesg program.  Try issuing the command:
$ dmesg | less
right after booting.  If you don't have a /var directory, you may not
have your log files.  I don't know if dmesg keeps messages in memory
or reads the /var/log/dmesg file.  All these should give you even more
info than what you see when booting.  You can also use "more" in place
of "less" if you prefer (as you can see, programmers definitely have a
sense of humor).

> >4] Any ideas how to figure out which files the installer did not get in place and repair the installation?

Not really.  If your installation is really broken (ie, you don't have
/usr and /var somewhere) then you are probably better off
re-installing.

> >5]  I downloaded this distro through the duke site with bittorrent.  Could it be an issue with that particular ISO.  (Yes I did the validation before installing and it checked out, as well as the install process did not complain with any errors)

I don't think so.  That's the main torrent, and that should be even
better than a straight download as each piece is error-checked during
the process.  I don't see how you could have  gotten a bad download
using bittorrent.

> >
> >Appreciate the assistance,
> >
> >mmecum
> >mmecum at gmail.com

Hope this helps,
Jonathan