Rockstor 4 Installation – freezing during install - (Almost Resolved - NOT locking up)

Installation
1

Attempting to install Rockstor 4 - openSUSE Leap15.3 on an old AMD Athlon II. The installation just freezes in the middle of the install.

The system is an AMD Athlon II, 6G RAM, OS drive new 128G SSD.
The system (old desktop) has been running as a file server for years (Centos – SAMBA and NFS) until both boot drives went DOA (RAID1).
Over the last week, the system has been running Ubuntu 20.04 and rsync-ing the data to backup drives. No crashes no lockups.
After attempting to install Rockstor 4 and freezing on each install attempt I installed the full openSUSE Leap 15.3-2 on the system without any issues.

The issue is on both:
Rockstor 4 - Leap15.3
Rockstor 4 - Leap15.2

The freeze is more or less random at the general point on each attempt to install.

From GRUB install - the install froze at – after selecting the install drive:
[ OK ] Reached target Swap.

From GRUB Failsafe install:
[ OK ] Reached target Swap.
systemd[1]: Mounting Kernel Configuration File System

Ctrl-Alt-DEL still works after freeze

Any help would be appreciated

2

Update – the system is not freezing during the install.

The issue is that when the install and or operational bootup changes the display graphical mode the display is what freezes.
The first giveaway was that Ctrl-Alt-DEL still worked after it froze.
Moved the OS SSD to another system (Dell 780 - i5) and booted from the SSD to the screen asking the language. I was able to finish the install from that point.
Then I did a clean install on the Dell to the SSD. Installed the SSD in the original computer and booted the system. The screen then freezes during the boot sequence and it looked like the system was completely frozen. I scanned the network and found the IP of the Rockstor system. Connected to it from a browser and all seems to be working.

Need to find if there is a change that can be made to GRUB or a system configuration so that the display will not freeze!
Any ideas??

3

@MikeS Welcome to the Rockstor community.
Re:

This could well be a long standing issue with some AMD systems re their video. Nice diagnosis re using a donor install system.

You may well require a custom kernel parameter (can be entered via the first screen) that relates to not switching the screen modes on AMD hardware.

Try the kernel option:

nomodeset

In addition to the existing kernel command line options used by grub for the default entry at this installer stage:
https://rockstor.com/docs/installation/installer-howto.html#initial-selection-screen

Hope that helps and let us know how you get on.

Adding what ever works to your resulting system is another step but lets find what works first.

Once found you can also create your own custom installer with the required option/options in place by editing the relevant

kernelcmdline

entry in the DIY installer, ie. for a x86_64 profile it would be this line:

But the first thing is to find what works. And you can easily add whatever you find to the resulting install once it’s in-place. I.e. add my-hand on first re-boot then add permanently bu then adding the option via a similar edit to /etc/default/grub followed by:

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

to instantiate the configuration edit. All subsequent boots will then have the required command line, even after updates etc.

What you find may very well be worth us adding to the default config actually.

Let us know how you get on and do some searches on amd linux boot issues re video as it’s a long standing compatibility thing that it would be good for us to pop in by default anyway.

Hope that helps.

2 Likes
4

Thanks, I will give it a try.

FYI - adding a graphics card is a workaround for the issue. I need the the expansion slot so not a long term fix for me.