Bug 294432

Summary: Error occured while installing LILO
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE 10.3 Reporter: Per Jessen <per>
Component: InstallationAssignee: Alexander Osthof <aosthof>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact: Jiri Srain <jsrain>
Severity: Critical    
Priority: P5 - None CC: coolo, johan.ferner, massimo.chiappini, mike, stefan.fent
Version: Beta 3Flags: coolo: SHIP_STOPPER-
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: Other   
OS: Other   
Whiteboard:
Found By: --- Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---
Attachments: /var/log/Yast2/ tarred and gzipped
YaST2 logs from 10.3 Beta2 after install
YaST2 logs after 10.3 Beta3 install
proposed patch fixing the bug

Description Per Jessen 2007-07-25 09:56:41 UTC
Created attachment 152904 [details]
/var/log/Yast2/ tarred and gzipped

The text from the error-message window:

LILO version 22.7, Copyright (C) 1992-1998 Werner Almesberger
Development beyond version 21 Copyright (C) 1999-2005 John Coffman
Released 12-Apr-2005, and compiled at 06:17:41 on Jul 17 2007

raid_setup returns offset = 00000000  ndisk = 0
 BIOS   VolumeID   Device
Reading boot sector from /dev/sda
pf_hard_disk_scan: ndevs=1
  0800  000C8E27  /dev/sda
device codes (user assigned pf) = 0
device codes (user assigned) = 0
device codes (BIOS assigned) = 0
device codes (canonical) = 1
Warning: Unable to determine video adapter in use in the present system.
Using MENU secondary loader
Calling map_insert_data
Secondary loader: 22 sectors (0x3C00 dataend).
bios_boot = 0x80  bios_map = 0x80  map==boot = 0  map S/N: 000C8E27
Mapping message file /boot/message
Calling map_insert_file
Message: 758 sectors.
BIOS data check will include auto-suppress check

Syntax error at or above line 14 in file '/etc/lilo.conf'
Removed temporary file /boot/map~
Comment 1 Per Jessen 2007-07-25 10:59:45 UTC
Uh, the lilo.conf has no "image=" statements .....
Comment 2 Michal Kubeček 2007-08-28 10:11:17 UTC
Generated lilo.conf still incorrect (missing 'image' lines) in 10.3 Beta 2.
Comment 3 Stefan Fent 2007-08-28 10:37:55 UTC
Can you please add the logs again?
We improved the logging of perl-Bootloader for beta2, so it would be easier to debug with beta2
Comment 4 Michal Kubeček 2007-08-28 11:28:49 UTC
Created attachment 160221 [details]
YaST2 logs from 10.3 Beta2 after install

YaST2 logs from 10.3 Beta2 immediately after install.
Comment 5 Per Jessen 2007-08-29 13:47:45 UTC
I'm assuming that Michals logs are sufficient, but let me know if you need mine too.
Comment 6 Michal Kubeček 2007-09-07 00:25:56 UTC
Created attachment 162523 [details]
YaST2 logs after 10.3 Beta3 install

Bug still there in 10.3 Beta3, logs attached.
Comment 7 Michal Kubeček 2007-09-14 14:27:23 UTC
I tested it again and tried these configurations with 6 GB virtual disk in VMware (tested both IDE and SCSI):

1. 6 GB sda1 /, boot from /dev/sda
2. 0.5 GB sda1 swap, 5.5 GB sda2 /, boot from /dev/sda
3. 4 GB sda1 /, 256 MB sda2 swap, 1.8 GB sda3 /home,
   boot from /dev/sda
4. 4 GB sda1 /, 256 MB sda2 swap, 1.8 GB sda3 /home,
   boot from /dev/sda1

In all cases bootloader installation failed because of missing image=... lines in lilo.conf and the only way to go on was either to switch to GRUB or to add those lines manually.
Comment 8 Stephan Kulow 2007-09-14 17:19:42 UTC
Sorry, lilo bugs are _not_ blocker. We use grub as default
Comment 9 Michal Kubeček 2007-09-14 19:16:24 UTC
Yes, GRUB is default; but LILO is still a regular option in the installer. And as long as it is, shipping 10.3 with installer that is sure to fail if user selects LILO would be a big shame.

The same argument might apply to bugs that make the installation fail (every time) if user selects non-default timezone or language, changes disk partitioning or software selection. Would you say that such bugs cannot be blockers either?
Comment 10 Stephan Kulow 2007-09-14 19:39:25 UTC
Depends what happens then.
Comment 11 Michal Kubeček 2007-09-14 19:58:46 UTC
Well, if this bug is not going to be fixed before final (fixing it later doesn't help much for the first phase of installation), it would be perhaps better to disable the GRUB/LILO switch in pre-install configuration.
Comment 12 Per Jessen 2007-09-15 07:49:19 UTC
Please don't disable the switch.  That would be the first step for getting rid of lilo altogether.  OTOH, lack of working lilo support is pretty critical in my opinion. 
Comment 13 Stephan Kulow 2007-09-15 07:58:00 UTC
any specific reason why you think so?
Comment 14 Per Jessen 2007-09-15 08:19:21 UTC
I guess mostly because all of our systems use lilo :-) 

Having to install with grub and then manually install and configure lilo would be unnecessary hassle. The way it "works" now is more acceptable than not having lilo at all. We install over ssh, so logging in and fixing lilo.conf manually is easy.

Is there any reason why fixing this problem is such a big deal? It seems to be really minor. I would offer to look at it myself and submit a patch, but I simply haven't got the time.  And I probably don't know yast well enough either :-(
Comment 15 Stephan Kulow 2007-09-15 08:29:30 UTC
See, and it's the same with everyone. As long as there are problems with the default path, fixing problems in a side path will have less priority.

I don't even think you have to know yast. All is in 
rpm -ql perl-Bootloader
Comment 16 Michal Kubeček 2007-09-15 13:51:11 UTC
Created attachment 164200 [details]
proposed patch fixing the bug

I think I've got it but I'm not sure if it is the best way. I'm not a perl expert...
Comment 17 Michal Kubeček 2007-09-22 11:18:00 UTC
For anyone interested, fixed RPM's are on

  http://www.mk-sys.cz/suse/10.3/
Comment 18 Stephan Kulow 2007-09-22 13:38:20 UTC
please review
Comment 19 Johan Ferner 2007-09-23 10:45:19 UTC
Thanks for fixing this. This bug bit me when I installed 10.3 RC1.
So why use lilo? Well my company uses Safeguard Easy and I'm dualbooting my laptop. I tried getting the grub/lilo bootloaders to play nice with this thing but failed.

So I bought a USB memory stick and am booting off it into Suse.

I have yet to see any option in grub to install grub onto /dev/sdb in my case. So I *have to* use lilo (or if I'm mistaken, please correct me).

Lilo on the other hand let's me do this.
Comment 20 Alexander Osthof 2007-09-24 17:14:51 UTC
Ok, I've checked in your patch, so it still will be integrated in 10.3. 
Thank you much for providing it :)

Thus, closing this bug RESOLVED FIXED.
Comment 21 Alexander Osthof 2007-09-24 20:38:24 UTC
*** Bug 308389 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***