Testing my appliance remains unbootable.

SUSE Studio / Studio Express
1

I don’t think the first thing I’m supposed to see when testing my build
is penguins dancing around, but that’s what I get. Strange thing is that
the About dialog of this penguin atrocity has a web link that does not
resolve, and a directory to a /boot/message file, promising that it can
stop this penguin madness, yet when I cd terminal into /boot and then ls
terminal it to show its contents after nano said it doesn’t exist since
I tried to edit it like it taunted me to, there is neither a “message”
directory nor a message file to begin with. I posted a link to some
screenshots. The one with the green progress bar shows the GUI screen
which is practically a dead end, it doesn’t do anything after that. I’ve
used up my whole hour allotted for testing the appliance in one
instance, thinking it would eventually load my desktop on its own, but
it never went past showing a green bar across the bottom of the screen
after it filled up. So another time I tried startx (there’s a screenshot
of the output), and another instance I even tried sudo gdm, but there’s
no point in posting a screenshot of that because it only made a black
screen forever. I also include the “system menu” screenshot which is
executed after I press the Alt-F1 button on the side of the testing
window. Please, help me. http://tinyurl.com/k2o8t5s

–
maiar

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2

I made some progress, but I think installation remains impossible. I
started a new appliance from scratch to make sure I did not remove any
important packages that come bundled with a new GNOME appliance while
adding the packages I wanted. This action gave me the appearance of the
boot selection screen that I my configuration said it should look like,
removing the appearance of the dancing penguins, yet the green status
bar would still appear and freeze after it fills up. I fixed this part
by building the disk image format instead of the live cd/dvd, so the
green bar is a bug that seems to be isolated to particular builds. Once
I test drove a disk image build, the correct personalization I
configured finally showed up for the boot screen as it did for the boot
selection screen I fixed with necessary software. Here is the tricky
thing. I have been able to test drive my disk image build successfully,
but only by using a trick which only works in SuseStudio, leaving my
hopes to install my appliance on my computer thwarted. The thing about
it that only works in SuseStudio, only in the disk image build format,
and only once the logo is brightened all the way, if I press the
Cntrl-Alt-Delete button twice very quickly, then it would restart and
quickly advance into my desktop login screen (or when I set it to log in
the user automatically, to the desktop), and I could test out my
appliance then. This bug seems to be bigger than I thought. I hope it is
fixed soon, so that I can install my appliance and use OpenSuse because
I think that if I try to install it as is then when I’m supposed to
press Control Alt Delete on my keyboard, it might start a full reboot on
my machine and then freeze at the logo again. Should I try to install
the disk image format? I’ve installed Linux distributions with ISO and
Preload formats, but the SuseStudio’s instructions on how to use a USB
drive to install the disk image format seem complicated, but I will try
it if you want. Here are more screenshots of the progress I’ve made,
http://tinyurl.com/mredhbc

–
maiar

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3

The “dancing penguins” is an openSUSE thing for December. It’s harmless
and can be disabled if you want. See:

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Animated_penguin_GRUB_splash_screen

for details.

What version of openSUSE are you using to build the appliance, what
platform is the appliance, and what specific packages are you selecting
during the installation?

Jim

–
Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell/SUSE/NetIQ Knowledge Partner

4

Ah, I see. So, if I wanted to change the dancing penguins setting, would
it affect future appliance tests statefully? I will keep this in mind if
it ever shows up again.

I am using the 64-bit, openSUSE 13.1 for the GNOME desktop, and the
packages I’m selecting are (the ones marked with an asterisk come
automatically after selecting the version and architecture): abiword,
*dbus-1-x11, dpkg, *glibc-locale (I’m noticing there are two of these
exact same packages selected one after the other), gnome-backgrounds,
gnome-calculator, gnome-photos, gnome-screenshot, gnome-software,
gnome-system-monitor, *gnome-terminal, gpa, *grub2,
*gtk2-branding-openSUSE, *gtk3-branding-openSUSE, *gvfs-backends, gwget,
*icewm, imagewriter, inkscape, *iputils, *kernel-default, kernel-grsec,
*less, *libgnomesu, MozillaFirefox, nano, pax-utils, *plymouth,
pullin-flash-player, *SuSEfirewall2 (sic), sushi, *syslog-ng, *tomboy,
*vim, *x11-tools, *xf-86-video-modesetting, *xorg-x11,
*xorg-x11-driver-input, *xorg-x11-driver-video, *xorg-x11-fonts,
*xorg-x11-server, *yast2, *yast2-branding-openSUSE,
*yast2-control-center-gnome, *yast2-firstboot, *yast2-theme-openSUSE,
*yast2-x11, *zypper. Just in case you need them, the patterns I’m
selecting are: base, devel_rpm_build, gnome, gnome_basis, x11; and the
repositories I have selected are openSUSE 13.1 Updates, openSUSE 13.1
OSS, dsterba_13.1, and my own respository which suse studio
automatically adds, despite having 0 packages and 0 patterns in it.

–
maiar

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5

On Tue, 17 Dec 2013 22:36:01 +0000, maiar wrote:
[color=blue]

Ah, I see. So, if I wanted to change the dancing penguins setting, would
it affect future appliance tests statefully? I will keep this in mind if
it ever shows up again.[/color]

Only if you export the setting from the test drive and import it into the
configuration for future builds. :slight_smile:

I’ll have a look at the list you posted a bit later - in the middle of a
project (just waiting for a download to finish) at work, so not a lot of
time at the moment.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell/SUSE/NetIQ Knowledge Partner

6

On Tue, 17 Dec 2013 22:56:27 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
[color=blue]

I’ll have a look at the list you posted a bit later - in the middle of a
project (just waiting for a download to finish) at work, so not a lot of
time at the moment.[/color]

I’ve just built an appliance with the settings you used, and actually,
hitting escape during boot, I see it hanging after “LVM: Activation
generator ssuccessfully completed.” shows twice. If you hit esc, do you
see the same thing?

Jim

Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell/SUSE/NetIQ Knowledge Partner

7

On Wed, 18 Dec 2013 01:10:20 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
[color=blue]

On Tue, 17 Dec 2013 22:56:27 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
[color=green]

I’ll have a look at the list you posted a bit later - in the middle of
a project (just waiting for a download to finish) at work, so not a lot
of time at the moment.[/color]

I’ve just built an appliance with the settings you used, and actually,
hitting escape during boot, I see it hanging after “LVM: Activation
generator ssuccessfully completed.” shows twice. If you hit esc, do you
see the same thing?[/color]

I did a little more fiddling around with it, and did get into the GUI by
enabling networking, connecting via ssh, and then running:

init 3
init 5

That got me a GUI in test drive, but it’s odd that it didn’t do that the
first time.

I wonder if you can reproduce that.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell/SUSE/NetIQ Knowledge Partner

8

I will have to try another day, for SuseStudio is under maintenance in
the server I’m trying to connect to at the moment. I then Googled how to
ssh into SuseStudio because I unfortunately have never ssh’ed into
anything yet despite a few years of Linux user experience, and it came
up with instructions on SuseStudio which (again) is under maintenance. I
will have to test the escape during boot and ssh, init 3, init 5 later.
Sorry for the delay. When I get the chance, did you press escape first
thing, during the boot selection screen, loading screen, or boot screen
(the names of the screenshots in the second link I posted give these
frames of reference)? If I do get ssh to reproduce the GUI like you did,
is ssh possible during live installation on a real machine in order for
me to actually use this appliance?

–
maiar

maiar’s Profile: http://forums.opensuse.org/member.php?userid=78887
View this thread: http://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php?t=493072

9

On Fri, 20 Dec 2013 08:36:01 +0000, maiar wrote:
[color=blue]

I will have to try another day, for SuseStudio is under maintenance in
the server I’m trying to connect to at the moment.[/color]

No problem. :slight_smile:
[color=blue]

I then Googled how to
ssh into SuseStudio because I unfortunately have never ssh’ed into
anything yet despite a few years of Linux user experience, and it came
up with instructions on SuseStudio which (again) is under maintenance.[/color]

When you enable networking in Test Drive, the page gives you the command
to enter. Just copy and paste. :slight_smile:
[color=blue]

I
will have to test the escape during boot and ssh, init 3, init 5 later.
Sorry for the delay. When I get the chance, did you press escape first
thing, during the boot selection screen, loading screen, or boot screen
(the names of the screenshots in the second link I posted give these
frames of reference)? If I do get ssh to reproduce the GUI like you did,
is ssh possible during live installation on a real machine in order for
me to actually use this appliance?[/color]

The ssh option here is specific to SUSE Studio test drive - it lets you
get into the machine before its network is enabled.

I got past the grub2 menu, so pressed escape after the image came up
indicating the system was booting - as on a real system, so I could see
where the boot process was hanging up.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell/SUSE/NetIQ Knowledge Partner