Fedora 16 Alpha discussion thread

[AdamW]

Starting a new thread for Alpha discussion. Note that Alpha RC5 was blessed as Alpha, so if you have Alpha RC5, there's no point re-downloading Alpha, it's the same thing.

The 'announce' post is over in the News forum (http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=268779). Get Alpha here (http://fedoraproject.org/get-prerelease), and do remember to read the release notes (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_16_Alpha_release_notes) and common bugs (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F16_bugs).

[Dan]

Well ... it fails to boot off of a USB drive here. No root device found.

[AdamW]

that's very non-specific.

what image? how did you write it to the usb stick?

[Dan]

Listing backwards, Fedora USB creator, and the live x86_64 image. Might be a bit too soon to condemn F16, though. F15, then F14 just failed on the same USB drive. Methinks the jump drive is toast.

[Dan]

*Sigh!*

Strike two. Both the PNY and the Toshiba failed. It's starting to look like this is going to cost me a CD.

[glennzo]

It's starting to look like this is going to cost me a CD

Want I should mail you a nickel Dan? :p

[smr54]

Where is the custom partitioning and not putting grub in boot at at this point? As far as I understood it, RC5 is not working unless one accepts one of the default layouts, and risks putting grub in the mbr, thereby requiring me to <gasp> see how to edit a grub2 menu. Some custom file out of the 40 or so in there, right? (Not a real question, when the time comes I'll look it up.)


All kidding aside, does the latest alpha install with custom partitioning? In other words, what I've always done in the past, when trying on hardware, is to put it in a partition, just making a / partition. As per other threads (here and mailing list) at this point, one gets a somewhat cryptic message (bug has been filed, message will probably be less cryptic) saying that one must create a small BIOS partition. Also, one can't just put grub in the first partition of the install at this time.

I'd like to be clear on whether that's changed or not. As it stood, what has worked for the last few years no longer does, and I haven't seen enough on it to know if that's still the case, or one of those gosh darn Just Me(TM) problems.

Thanks.

[dd_wizard]

It's running fine off a live USB here. I even went to the trouble of downloading the latest evolution, evolution-NetworkManager, and evolution-data-server so I could get the updates to gnome-[menu, panel, shell], nautilus-sendto, control-center, and folks. That was a total waste of energy!

Packages Altered:
Updated control-center-1:3.1.4-1.fc16.x86_64 @fedora
Update 1:3.1.5-2.fc16.x86_64 ?
Updated control-center-filesystem-1:3.1.4-1.fc16.x86_64 @fedora
Update 1:3.1.5-2.fc16.x86_64 ?
Updated evolution-3.1.4-1.fc16.x86_64 @fedora
Update 3.1.5-1.fc16.x86_64 ?
Updated evolution-NetworkManager-3.1.4-1.fc16.x86_64 @fedora
Update 3.1.5-1.fc16.x86_64 ?
Updated evolution-data-server-3.1.4-1.fc16.x86_64 @fedora
Update 3.1.5-1.fc16.x86_64 ?
Updated folks-1:0.6.0-2.fc16.x86_64 @updates-testing
Update 1:0.6.0-4.fc16.x86_64 ?
Updated gnome-menus-3.0.1-1.fc16.x86_64 @fedora
Update 3.1.5-2.fc16.x86_64 @?updates-testing
Updated gnome-panel-3.0.2-3.fc16.x86_64 @fedora
Update 3.1.5-2.fc16.x86_64 @?updates-testing
Updated gnome-panel-libs-3.0.2-3.fc16.x86_64 @fedora
Update 3.1.5-2.fc16.x86_64 @?updates-testing
Updated gnome-shell-3.1.4-1.fc16.x86_64 @fedora
Update 3.1.4-2.gite7b9933.fc16.x86_64 @?updates-testing
Updated nautilus-sendto-1:3.0.0-6.fc16.x86_64 @fedora
Update 1:3.0.0-9.fc16.x86_64 ?

This version of gnome-shell crashes so often, it's pretty useless. :( Still no luck getting it on a hard drive, but I haven't given up yet.

dd_wizard

[glennzo]

'nuff said. I downloaded and am burning a disk as we speak (in mid process) but I think it will just be a coaster. If I still can't install to an existing partition I'm not going to bother.

[smr54]

Well, let us know--inquiring minds anxiously await.

[ah7013]

Currently downloading the 32-bit GNOME Live CD to try on my old laptop. I don't currently have a USB drive on me so I am going to have to burn a CD.

---------- Post added at 01:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 PM ----------

Currently downloading the 32-bit GNOME Live CD to try on my old laptop. I don't currently have a USB drive on me so I am going to have to burn a CD.

Well it booted OK but because of the age of the hardware (Compaq Evo N800v) GNOME shell failed to load :(. However fallback mode works fine.

---------- Post added at 01:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:15 PM ----------

Now downloading the KDE Live CD to test that one out as well.

[Adrian719]

I tried to install Fedora16 Alpha a few times today, all were unsuccessful.
It would install fine, but then I would log in, and I would get a message saying: "A problem has occured, and the system can't recover. Please log out and try again".

First time I installed with:

yum install fedora-release-rawhide

yum --disablerepo=16 --enablerepo=rawhide update

That gave me the error, the first time.

So I tried:

yum update yum
yum clean all
yum --releasever=16 --disableplugin=presto distrosync --nogpgcheck

Error again.

So then for the last and final time, I tried installing from a LiveUSB (changed all isolinux to syslinux).
Same thing

So I gave up, and am now back to F15 lol.

[tox]

this Nightly crashed Fedora-16-Nightly-20110823.21-i686-Live-desktop.iso, when it tried to load the shell thats when it crashed, it gave me a ( ohh no something has gone wrong and cannot recover ) i thought it was a selinux problem as the first attempt at booting into it it did give me a AVC denial, ( of what i dont know - as selinux wouldnt load to tell me the exact error. then i rebooted and loaded again with the same thing as i said, the ( ohh no something has gone wrong and cannot recover )

[Dan]

dracut Warning: No root device 'live:/dev/disk/by-uuid/EA73-A471" found

Dropping to debug shell.

sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
dracut:/#

Not much I can do with that. Sadly, for me, F16 Alpha=fail.

[pkands]

"A problem has occured, and the system can't recover. Please log out and try again".

This is what I get with my laptop and desktop PC with the LIVE CD version.
This occurs when trying to load the desktop ( I think).

[paolo1965]

..Hi..

for me too:

"A problem has occured, and the system can't recover. Please log out and try again"

I tried the RC4 worked ok ..installed....updated ..all ok !

bye
Paolo

[zuser]

KDE-x64 live cd booted ok onToshiba U500-ST5305 with nvidia G210m and realtek wifi, both working
Unfortunately overheating due to no thermal management ie no cooling fan.
Otherwise, looking good.

[chepioq]

......................
Unfortunately overheating due to no thermal management ie no cooling fan.
Otherwise, looking good.

I have same problem with my nvidia 8700M GT.

It's a problem with nouveau, that does not manage the fans for some cards...

And F16 don't support nvidia-driver, because debugging...

[AdamW]

Does custom partitioning work? Yes, the installer can make custom partition layouts. Some specific ones may not work, you will need a BIOS boot partition if you're using GPT disk labels (the default) with BIOS rather than EFI, and there's a big caveat below.

The big caveat is something discussed above: in Alpha, anaconda can't install the bootloader to a partition, only to the MBR. This is documented, with a slightly icky workaround, here (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F16_bugs#grub2-partition-fail). It should be fixed for Beta.

'A problem has occurred and the system can't recover' is what's colloquially referred to as the GNOME Fail Whale - it means some key GNOME component is crashing repeatedly. You can try hitting alt-f4, and if the component isn't quite so key as all that, the Fail Whale will disappear (it's really just a full-screen app) and you'll see the glory of GNOME beneath it, and probably an abrt icon which will tell you what's actually crashing. If alt-f4 doesn't help, you can go to a console and try and find what's crashing from ~/.xsession-errors . Either way, we need to know exactly what's crashing to debug the issue; just knowing that you're hitting the Fail Whale screen isn't quite enough.

(Would it be nice for the Fail Whale to have a button which fires up icewm and runs abrt-gui inside it? Yes, yes it probably would.)

[smr54]

Thanks, (as always) for the further explanation.

Will probably wait then, at least till I do some reading on grub2.

[xheliox]

Not sure what changed, but just testing out F16 Alpha on my Mactel and the video was very sluggish.

I was able to fix it by adding the NoAccel 'true' option to xorg.conf, but I didn't have to do this in the past. Anyone experiencing anything similar?

ATI Technologies Inc Broadway PRO [Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series]

[dd_wizard]

I never did manage to get the F16 alpha installer to work, so I borrowed a page from the rawhide manual; use the netinstaller from the most recent stable version. I partitioned a USB stick into a 300MB FAT partition and used livecd-iso-to-disk to make an F15 netinstall USB partion. I formated the rest of the stick to ext2 and copied the F16 alpha install DVD iso file to it. The following worked for making a custom partitioning scheme:

1. Boot the netinstaller
2. Press TAB and append askmethod to the boot command, then press enter
3. After selecting language and keyboard, use the arrow keys to find the partition with the install iso
4. Enter / for the path, unless you put it in a sub-directory
5. Select Custom Layout and set up your partions
6. Install the boot loader to the /boot partition. The other option for me was the MBR of the netinstall USB stick! :doh:

Some interesting side notes:

The F15 installer performs a legacy grub install, so I just tweaked the entry in the F16 /boot/grub/grub.conf and copied it to the grub configuration file in my F15 /boot partition. Guess I'm not ready for grub2. :p

So far, everything is AOK.

dd_wizard

[AdamW]

xheliox: was this with the stock Alpha kernel (which is a bit old) or did you update your kernel after install?

[xheliox]

xheliox: was this with the stock Alpha kernel (which is a bit old) or did you update your kernel after install?3.1.0-0.rc3.git0.0.fc16.x86_64 -- pretty sure I updated after install.

[paolo1965]

AdamW,thanks for the explanation...

bye
Paolo

---------- Post added at 06:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:09 AM ----------

AdamW,thanks for the explanation...

bye
Paolo

[kkshethin]

Laptop Lenovo G550. Dual Boot with Window7 & Fedora15_64
Downloaded Fedora-16-Alpha-x86_64-Live-Desktop.iso.
Booted in virtualbox 4.1.2r73507. success. Used Install to harddisk option.

1. Allocated 1024 MB RAM& 8GB HD. Tried to install by custom partitioning. Only boot & Root partition. No swap.
Error. says cannot install, less memory. required 1069 ram. available memory 1011 (perhaps 1024-13 video memory which virtualbox keeps default). Created swap of 500 MB. Installed. error message regarding bootloader might not be installed correctly. On booting, error- no bootable media found.

2. installed by replace existing linux system. Installed. booted. Gnome 3 fails again in virtualbox. fallback mode. Shutdown not working properly.

3. Yum update. error says use --skip-broken. used skip-broken.

Packages skipped because of dependency problems:
1:control-center-3.1.5-3.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
1:control-center-filesystem-3.1.5-3.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
empathy-3.1.5.1-1.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
evolution-data-server-3.1.5-2.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
1:folks-0.6.0-5.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
gnome-contacts-0.1.2-2.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
gnome-keyring-3.1.4-1.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
gnome-keyring-pam-3.1.4-1.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
gnome-menus-3.1.5-2.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
gnome-panel-3.1.5-3.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
gnome-shell-3.1.4-2.gite7b9933.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
libsocialweb-0.25.19-1.fc16.x86_64 from fedora
libsocialweb-keys-0.25.19-1.fc16.noarch from fedora
p11-kit-0.3-2.fc16.x86_64 from fedora
p11-kit-0.4-1.fc16.x86_64 from updates-testing
Error: Protected multilib versions: gnome-panel-libs-3.0.2-3.fc16.i686 != gnome-panel-libs-3.1.5-3.fc16.x86_64
[root@localhost ~]#

Used exclude package by way of -x. updating.

4. After ypdating, Screen went black. No background. Changing of background not working. (fallback mode)

[is977]

I have problem with speed on my 8600GT. Proprietary driver worked fine on F15, but wont install on F16. So I have very bad speed in KDE4.
Any idea how I can speed up nouveau? or what way for remove nouveau and install normal nvidia driver?

---------- Post added at 01:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:52 PM ----------

also glibc-2.14.90-6 is very bugged - kde wont start, I get segfault in kdeinit4

[Dutchy]

@kkshethin

To make it shutdown properly you might need to enable the sata cache in Virtualbox.

I also installed it in Virtualbox which works great (also with custom partitioning).
I have the same problems with updating (lots of packages not found) also the guest additions didn't fully install (x-server not installed because of new x-version or something. they work but with a black background in fallback mode).

[kkshethin]

Dutchy Online
Registered User

Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 22
linuxfirefox
Re: Fedora 16 Alpha discussion thread
@kkshethin

To make it shutdown properly you might need to enable the sata cache in Virtualbox.

I also installed it in Virtualbox which works great (also with custom partitioning).
I have the same problems with updating (lots of packages not found) also the guest additions didn't fully install (x-server not installed because of new x-version or something. they work but with a black background in fallback mode).

Almost same here.

however, regarding custom partitioning, it is strange that you installed because refer to post of Adamw. It says that it is not posiible for booloader.

Further, there are crash messages for pulsaudio, gnome-setting-daemon (not harmful).

i added one more user. Swiching user do not work.

Background remained black. When i tried to swich user, background (that underwater submarine) temporarily showed.

Default install creates one partition of 1MB for bios. refer details

[root@localhost ~]# parted -l /dev/sda
Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 11.8GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 2097kB 1049kB bios_grub
2 2097kB 526MB 524MB ext4 ext4 boot
3 526MB 11.8GB 11.3GB lvm


Model: Linux device-mapper (linear) (dm)
Disk /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root: 8825MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: loop

Number Start End Size File system Flags
1 0.00B 8825MB 8825MB ext4


Model: Linux device-mapper (linear) (dm)
Disk /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_swap: 2449MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: loop

Number Start End Size File system Flags
1 0.00B 2449MB 2449MB linux-swap(v1)


[root@localhost ~]#

[gtirloni]

LiveCD

I tried to boot F16 alpha on a VirtualBox machine (1 proc, 768MB RAM, 12GB disk, 24MB video, USB 2.0, audio enabled, booting from LiveCD iso).

It could not boot and the loading bars (specially the white one) took over the screen and not much happened for 10 minutes.

I decided to reboot and remove "quiet" from the GRUB line and also pressed ESC to see what was happening. The snapshots are attached. I would open a bug but I don't know what to open it against since lots of things seem to be failing. Can anyone guide me?

Install DVD

The install DVD boots with less errors but it hangs right after "Starting Anaconda". Nothing happens after that (no disk or network activity for 10 minutes).

The screenshots are attached. Any hints on how to debug it?

[dokuro]

well i tryed the cd it worked like a charmed, and could not wait to installed, it did in like 10 minutes, using 2gigs of ram unto a 10 gig partition however it did not add the old fedora 15 to the grub... i don't miss it

[gtirloni]

I was able to boot by increasing the memory to 1GB.

F15 needs only 768MB (it's in the front page) and I expected F16 to need the same... probably the debugging symbols and other missing optimizations require 1GB.

I couldn't find a minimum memory requirements in the release notes and/or common bugs.. perhaps it's a good thing to add this there?

[solo2101]

hmmm. Fedora 16 is almost out... i im still fighting with F15...:doh:

[tox]

downloaded the latest Nightly, got a crash with gnome-settings-daemon think the version was 3.1.4? in Fedora-16-Nightly-20110825.14-i686-Live-desktop.iso

[dokuro]

i don't have the world clock. why?

---------- Post added at 10:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:12 AM ----------

update is not working... keep not finding files...

---------- Post added at 11:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 AM ----------

yum clean helped...

---------- Post added at 11:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:31 AM ----------

this is my problem... @koji-override-0/$releasever

[lmcogs]

I installed kde live version and all went ok apart from at the end I got error message 'error installing bootloader' My main question is there is no option to not install grub when I would like to use my original bootloader and modify it manually. Instead the only options were to either install it in either disk mbr.

I have 2 disk sda and sdb and I installed f16 on sdb5.

fdisk - l
Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0005db41

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 1953520064 976759008+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000601a6

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 32017544 16008741 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 32018432 931446783 449714176 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 931448700 1231269794 149910547+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb4 1231269795 1953520064 361125135 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 1231269858 1468164284 118447213+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 1468164348 1924327423 228081538 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7 1924330023 1953520064 14595021 82 Linux swap / Solaris

I got it to boot by adding /dev/sdb5 in grub. How about an option not to install grub?

[fishwilson]

Just remove the tick in the boot loader box and it will not install a boot loader. I did it with both the Gnome and KDE versions of F16 and then just updating my ubuntu boot loader with update-grub from within Ubuntu. Works fine.

[martyfelker]

The only ISO that worked for me to install to HD was teh Fedora Live ISO (x64). Using the install to disk icon brought up Anaconda and I could install Fedora to an LVM volume I had created for F15. Unfortunately I could only install the bootloader to the MBR so its temporarily disabled booting to Ubuntu and openSUSE. Ananconda can't pick up other Linux OS and even calls Windows "other". Working with the horrible GRUB2 leads to this annoyance. So far I've customized grub.cfg (per instructions on a thread on this forum). I ca access the /boot paritions of these OS's in Windows using ex2explore (sweeet!) so I think I'll be able to use a custom.cfg to add those to the boot menu. If I can isntall GRUB to a waiting partition //dev/sdb2 the nI can reactivate Terabyte Unlimited BTBM which I like.

[Palooka]

FWIW, here is my story:

I got it installed into a VM (8GB disk, 1 GB RAM) OK, using Fedora-16-Nightly-20110828.10-x86_64-Live-lxde.iso. This was at the second attempt (with custom partitioning) - apparently it needs a 1MB "BIOS boot" partition , whatever one of those is.

It took ages though, and even after installing, the boot from HD was painfully slow.

Usually, one of my first actions is to remove "quiet" and rhgb" so that I can see what is going on. This is grub2, so I looked around, and made the appropriate changes to /etc/grub/default, then ran "sudo grub2-mkconfig" as the comments at the top of /boot/grub/grub.cfg suggested. No dice! It sent the output to stdout instead of to the file.

A little more reseach, and I realised that I needed to "sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg". Gosh, this is hard work!

It really is *painfully* slow though. I realise that alphas are weighed down with a ton of debug code and whatnot, but I cannot recall F13/14/15 being as bad as this. I'll persevere though.

Note: I am not running and will not run GNOME; I abandoned it in favour of LXDE when F15 emerged.

[tox]

ok i just downloaded and tested the 28/08/2011 Gnome3 32bit nightly cd and all works without a problem ( might add i never updated it as i just ran it as a liveCD

[diamond_ramsey]

ok i just downloaded and tested the 28/08/2011 Gnome3 32bit nightly cd and all works without a problem ( might add i never updated it as i just ran it as a liveCD

:cool: Very cool detox!!! :cool:

* Is there a URL for the above nightly in 32-bit and/or 64-bit?

I am downloading the Fedora 16 Alpha now in 64-bit. ;)

[tox]

:cool: Very cool detox!!! :cool:

* Is there a URL for the above nightly in 32-bit and/or 64-bit?

I am downloading the Fedora 16 Alpha now in 64-bit. ;)

yeah have a look in my Release Schedule thread ( F16 ) the link is in there or you can find the Nightly coompose link in the rawhide sub-forum as a Sticky

[kkshethin]

Fedora16>VirtualBox>guestadditions install error>
'Warning: unsupported pre-release version of X.Org Server installed. Not
installing the X.Org drivers."

Now what is pre-release x.org?

[bbfuller]

I installed F16 KDE on a Dell laptop last evening and applied all of the updates.

nmb won't start if you try to start it from the graphical interface or from the command line with "systemctl", smb starts and then stops within a short period of time.

Anyone know if this is something peculiar to my system or something that needs reporting?

[skytux]

Fedora16>VirtualBox>guestadditions install error>
'Warning: unsupported pre-release version of X.Org Server installed. Not
installing the X.Org drivers."

Now what is pre-release x.org?

The same happens to me. Who knows why?

[steelaworkn]

I won't be an Alpha or Beta tester, but I learn a lot from these discussions. I'm waiting to install 16 on Thanksgiving weekend. Kind of a tradition for the last few years. But keep up the good work.

[hamdanim]

What are the programs supported by fedora16
thanks

[downer]

Is it normal that the install from a live DVD can't make the root partition as btrfs and only the home partion can be made btrfs? The install disk kept complaining since the install media used ext3, that the root partition can also only be ext3. I tried formatting the entire hard drive as btrfs, but that didn't help. I know btrfs is still experimental and maybe still has no disk check.

[tox]

What are the programs supported by fedora16
thanks

what do you mean as in " programs supported by F16 ? can you be a bit more pacific

[sonoran]

I'm waiting to install 16 on Thanksgiving weekend.

There's an easy turkey joke here, but I don't want to jinx F16. Hoping for the best.

[AdamW]

downer: yes, it's normal. The live installer works by dumping a partition image onto the hard disk, basically: it doesn't format a partition then install packages to it one by one. That's the reason for the restriction.

[downer]

downer: yes, it's normal. The live installer works by dumping a partition image onto the hard disk, basically: it doesn't format a partition then install packages to it one by one. That's the reason for the restriction.
Thanks, never tried formatting from a live image before and never seen format options for live images.

[martyfelker]

The only reason I used the live installer is that it was the only ISO that booted (and yes I tried to burn several std ISO and checked them). While it does copy the image anaconda does offer to select the / and /boot partitions - else somebody would wipe their Windows partition and might not be happy. If I selected to change the location of the boot loader to a partition rather than the MBR Ananconda didn't complain but the install failed as the install bootloader step. . Hence I had no choice. I'll see if the recently realized TC! Alpha will boot - however I'm not in a rush as I've completely updated Alpha RC! to the current distribution release and its working great along with a multboot configuration. My machine is strictly experimental so if something fails I'll just wipe it (keeping the Logical Volumes) and re install.