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Resolved Lubuntu 16.04 Boot Error (Solution Within)
- Thread starter z970
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You can add the lubuntu themed LXDE to an installation of MATE
sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop
Log out, change the Window Manager selection at the GDM login screen to Lubuntu and you're in.
All of my recent Linux/PPC experience has been with Ubuntu MATE 16.04, some 16.10, Debian 8 Jessie and Fedora Server 25.
Debian Jessie would be my preferred choice for a G4 as it is much lighter, but on the G5 MATE is smooth and feature packed.
sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop
Log out, change the Window Manager selection at the GDM login screen to Lubuntu and you're in.
All of my recent Linux/PPC experience has been with Ubuntu MATE 16.04, some 16.10, Debian 8 Jessie and Fedora Server 25.
Debian Jessie would be my preferred choice for a G4 as it is much lighter, but on the G5 MATE is smooth and feature packed.
So team, GParted on MATE, "we have been unable to inform the kernel of the change probably because they are in use.", can't partition anything. I thought 16.04 had this stuff fixed, haven't seen it since 12.04.
What do you all say to that?
Will try to partition it in Lubuntu Live, then install MATE. Not like I have other options.
What do you all say to that?
Will try to partition it in Lubuntu Live, then install MATE. Not like I have other options.
Installation goes well enough...
And then it THROWS ME A "unable to mount root fs on unknown block" BEFORE SPLASH SCREEN. SAME THING AS LUBUNTU.
(Pretend this is in caps because all caps are against the rules) If this is how Mate behaves, then Lubuntu was the better experience! It was faster! It looked better! Meanwhile, every damn distro of 16.04 ends up broken!
Honest to god, this almost makes me want to migrate to early Intel! At least Intel Linux doesn't have anywhere near as many problems as G5 Linux does! And they're cheap enough! Not only that, if you don't get the broken iMacs or MacBook Pros, they might serve you well too!
But before I actually start considering that route, I'll at least try everything with a PowerBook G4, see how that goes. Doing that, however, will at least be a month away from now.
...
...Good god...
...
And then it THROWS ME A "unable to mount root fs on unknown block" BEFORE SPLASH SCREEN. SAME THING AS LUBUNTU.
(Pretend this is in caps because all caps are against the rules) If this is how Mate behaves, then Lubuntu was the better experience! It was faster! It looked better! Meanwhile, every damn distro of 16.04 ends up broken!
Honest to god, this almost makes me want to migrate to early Intel! At least Intel Linux doesn't have anywhere near as many problems as G5 Linux does! And they're cheap enough! Not only that, if you don't get the broken iMacs or MacBook Pros, they might serve you well too!
But before I actually start considering that route, I'll at least try everything with a PowerBook G4, see how that goes. Doing that, however, will at least be a month away from now.
...
...Good god...
...
Before you give up, did you try the physical swap in the drive bay? @LightBulbFun mentioned using Slot A. I just checked my 11,2 and can confirm that I have Ubuntu Mate 16.04 installed on a 1TB HDD which is definitely in Slot A (upper).
Check this and then reboot holding the option key, select the Penguin from the drive list and it *should* arrive at the Ubuntu Mate GDM login screen. (also try holding your tongue to the left while crossing your fingers and toes).
Check this and then reboot holding the option key, select the Penguin from the drive list and it *should* arrive at the Ubuntu Mate GDM login screen. (also try holding your tongue to the left while crossing your fingers and toes).
The Linux drive was in Slot A the entire time. From the beginning. Ubuntu installed onto sda.
Are you saying to put Drive B in Slot A and vv?
I don't particularly see how that would help...
How did YOU install Mate? Why does it like YOU? So far, all the distros I've tried hate me...
OK, well I would try it as a last ditch effort. Switch and see... It should only take a minute, no screws required. Reason being that as I experienced, the yaboot installation had switched SATA busses during config. And come to think of it, it was only on a G5 which had two HDDs installed, the others only had one drive and didn't have the issue.
Installed with one drive in Slot B, then switched and attempted boot from Slot A with the single drive. I'm haunted by that same damn error. It won't go away.
You're going to need to be a little more specific on what you want me to do, please.
Unable to mount root fs on unknown block.
What am I doing wrong...
[doublepost=1505769701][/doublepost]I'm ready to abandon full-time PowerPC. Linux is a horrible nightmare. Leopard is getting old and an increasing number of work websites and applications do not support it. And, let's not forget the elephant in the room, it is SLOW. Save for a G5.
I surrender.
...I'm thinking Mac Pro '06 later this year...
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So, ready to retract all the vitriol aimed at folks who are not daily PPC users?
Never mind-I'm asking for too much.
Never mind-I'm asking for too much.
If there was only 1 HDD installed and it was in slot A, then there's no reason why the installer should have failed and you won't need to swap things around.
The error you had from gparted may indicate a HDD Fault. As @LightBulbFun says, try a different HDD to rule this out.
Also you mentioned in the OP that your bootstrap partition was only 2MB. If you are manually configuring this, set it to 64MB instead.
The error you had from gparted may indicate a HDD Fault. As @LightBulbFun says, try a different HDD to rule this out.
Also you mentioned in the OP that your bootstrap partition was only 2MB. If you are manually configuring this, set it to 64MB instead.
Unable to mount blah blah blah.
You're supposed to give the swap partition the same amount of physical RAM you have, right?
Either way, I'm going to try this again doing the automatic install option with the said different drive in Slot A. If that won't work, nothing will.
Giving it one last shot...
wait you have been doing manual partitioning this entire time?!
augh, I figured you would had done the sensible thing and let it partition automatically after manual partitioning failed (im not even sure why you did it like that in the first place)... is there any reason you have been doing it manually? i really dont see why in your case, its very fiddly to manually partition and then install ppc linux to a drive (trust me iv done so its not fun at all) and unless you have a rather specific case its better to let the installer do everything automatically
augh, I figured you would had done the sensible thing and let it partition automatically after manual partitioning failed (im not even sure why you did it like that in the first place)... is there any reason you have been doing it manually? i really dont see why in your case, its very fiddly to manually partition and then install ppc linux to a drive (trust me iv done so its not fun at all) and unless you have a rather specific case its better to let the installer do everything automatically
Yes, the swap should be about the same size as the physical RAM. Leave slot B empty and try the automatic partitioning option.
You've been faced with a challenge!
Well for one, it won't even let you automatically install it because it requires an HFS partition formatted with a NewWorld boot format, so in my case, you have to partition it anyway.
Whatever. I have been faced with a challenge. I must act!
Huh.
From what I saw in GParted, I thought Yaboot only took a couple hundred kilobytes of space. So, I thought it was OK to make it small.
Guess I was wrong.
[doublepost=1505788249][/doublepost]OK, so, with the aforementioned different drive in Slot A, Slot B empty, and installed with the automatic option, it throws me the same godforsaken error that this entire thread has been centered around!
The only other free SATA drive I have is 2.5" and has data on it that I want to go through!
Even GParted in MATE didn't give me any crap when partitioning stuff!
What is the meaning of this?!
you have completely gone off the rails, it sounds like you clicked on the "something else" option at the drive setup prompt when you went to install ubuntu... aka the manual partitioner where you should not be right now...
I can slot in any drive i like formatted in whatever format and most of the the time the ubuntu setup will give me the option to "wipe the drive and install ubuntu" where it will format the hard drive and partition it automatically without any user intervention
your really making this harder then it should be LOL
No, you're right. It doesn't need to be any bigger. I confused myself (MorphOS required a 64MB boot HFS partition).
Here's a screenshot of my partitioning on the DC G5 (11,2). Slot A is a 1TB WD Green HDD with triple boot (Ubuntu Mate 16.04, Tiger and Leopard), Slot B has a 256GB Kingspec mSATA (in a 2.5" caddy) with just Tiger and Leopard.
When I setup this Mac, I performed 6(?) different PowerPC installations (3x G5s, 3x PBG4s) around the same time and they all had slightly different partitioning configs.
I can't be sure exactly, but looking back at my notes for this G5, it looks like I used Leopard's Disk Utility to initially setup the partitioning and installed Leopard first, then divided things up during the Mate installation. I believe I divided up the partitions again and added a 10GB volume for Tiger last.
You've got yourself a real head-scratcher of an issue here. You may need to seek advice with the Ubuntu/Mate/PPC gurus. Either on their forums or on IRC?
[doublepost=1505790081][/doublepost]Here's my yaboot.conf file:
Code:
## yaboot.conf generated by the Ubuntu installer
##
## run: "man yaboot.conf" for details. Do not make changes until you have!!
## see also: /usr/share/doc/yaboot/examples for example configurations.
##
## For a dual-boot menu, add one or more of:
## bsd=/dev/hdaX, macos=/dev/hdaY, macosx=/dev/hdaZ
boot="/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD10EVCS-63E0B0_WD-WCAU42364270-part2"
device=/ht@0,f2000000/pci@9/k2-sata-root@c/@ffffffffffffffff/@0
partition=4
root="UUID=f2bfa4a2-b5d7-4350-bce6-682db32f1e33"
timeout=100
install=/usr/lib/yaboot/yaboot
magicboot=/usr/lib/yaboot/ofboot
enablecdboot
macosx="/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD10EVCS-63E0B0_WD-WCAU42364270-part3"
macos="/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD10EVCS-63E0B0_WD-WCAU42364270-part6"
image=/boot/vmlinux
label=Linux
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="quiet splash nouveau.config=NvMSI=0"
image=/boot/vmlinux.old
label=old
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd.img.old
append="quiet splash""device=/ht@0,f2000000/pci@9/k2-sata-root@c/@ffffffffffffffff/@0"
That part was about the exact same in my .conf file.
I guess Linux doesn't like my specific machine. That, or the second hard drive, which is more likely.
No, they'll just give me an ocean of command line junk. Besides, I'm not asking anyone else. I'm done.
Maybe I'll try MATE on this PowerBook here...
Stupid question, I'm sure but is there a possibility your installation medium is b0rked in some way?
I'd say that the most likely case.
I've installed various distros umpteen times and never had an install issue - getting it all to work, that's another matter
I would say though, if you're not happy with PowerPC/Leopard performance, Linux is not going to fare any better - it offers different choices but it's not faster.