Install on USB stick, 2GB. Hang.

[chrismurphy]

Neither the LiveCD nor full DVD will let me install onto a 2GB USB stick, even though a minimal installation would certainly be less than 2GB. So I installed onto a harddrive and I'm trying to copy it to a USB stick and I'm having some issues. Good on Grub, and initial boot. I did remember to modify fstab.

Things start to slow up quite a bit during systemd starting services, first line of trouble is:

[7.123287] type=1400 audit(1318376822.624.:4): avc: denied {search} for pid=839 comm="irqbalance" name="/" dev=sdb2 ino=2 scontext=system_r:irqbalance_t:s0 tcontex

the rest of the line goes off the screen and that full line repeats 10 times. And then some more stuff starts up, and then:

Starting D-Bus System Message Bus...
[12.224262] systemd[1]: ip6tables.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=1
[12.235411] systemd[1]: Unit ip6tables.service entered failed state.

and more failed states and exits. So I'm thinking either dbus is confused, or selinux is confused, I'm not sure what else needs to be reset or modified when moving a linux install from one disk to another.

---------- Post added at 06:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:02 PM ----------

Helpful to point out that the machine totally hangs, I can't get to another shell or remote ssh or login. Last line is:

[124.580820] systemd-readahead-collect[443]: Failed to open pack file: Permission denied

Anything I do I need to do booted single user.

---------- Post added at 06:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:13 PM ----------

And I did use dracut to rebuild the initramfs.

---------- Post added at 06:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:26 PM ----------

The only log to populate with anything was boot.log - can post if it's useful.

[robvas]

I installed the LXDE spin and I managed to go over 2GB and that didn't include /boot or a swap partition. Might not fit on a 2GB USB drive.

[chrismurphy]

No Gnome, no X, took out a bunch of stuff I don't need. That system boots fine and fast from the hard drive it's installed onto, but once copied to the USB stick it implodes. I didn't see if there was an option to not install SELinux - might have been the wiser choice.

---------- Post added 12th October 2011 at 01:54 AM ---------- Previous post was 11th October 2011 at 06:55 PM ----------

The wisest choice is to get a bigger flash drive. $14 for 16GB.

[AdamW]

if you use automatic partitioning it's likely trying to create a swap partition bigger than the entire stick. if you used manual partitioning it could likely be happy though. (I think anaconda still just goes with 1.5x or 2x RAM size for swap partitions).

[chrismurphy]

Interesting point, I'll give that a try and report back.

---------- Post added at 12:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:08 PM ----------

Actually, wait, I don't think that's it. I remember getting a message saying that targets with less than 2808MB (or something close to that) aren't supported and it wouldn't let me proceed. That was with automatic partitioning: "Use All Space". So it may still be swap related, but it must not have been using the typical 1.5-2x metric because this is a machine with 4GB of RAM. A 2.8GB minimum supported destination is way less swap than that.

---------- Post added at 12:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 PM ----------

OK. The installer sees the flash drive, but at the "Partitioning Type" screen there are only three options: Use entire drive, Replace existing Linux system, Use free space. The text installer doesn't have custom like the GUI installer does. And I can't run the GUI installer because I have to use nomodeset to see anything on this hardware when booted EFI due to the EFI and nouveau conflict (which doesn't happen if I use CSM mode). But if I boot CSM mode, then I can't get an EFI install onto the USB stick, which is needed because the hardware only supports USB booting via EFI, not CSM.

Cute puzzle. Thanks Apple. I ordered a 16GB Kingston R500. That should resolve this.

---------- Post added at 12:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:33 PM ----------

Another problem is the text installer provides zero customization of what packages to install. And that package is too large for a 2GB flash drive.

[AdamW]

yeah, text install is intentionally barebones now. needing nomodeset shouldn't stop you using graphical install, though? graphical install can use the vesa driver. just try the 'install with basic graphics' option.

[AdamW]

oh, right, efi might screw with that, i guess.

[chrismurphy]

If I EFI boot and use nomodeset, x fails to load. At least when I boot EFI off the DVD (not possible yet on LiveCD), I have just one option in grub which is Fedora 16 beta. Off the LiveCD which is only CSM at the moment, I see a basic video option, but that grub2 menu is locked, I can't see what kernel parameter is used.

But I have a very vague memory of the F15 Live CD supporting BIOS and EFI, and when booting EFI without nomodeset I'm pretty sure I got that blue animated Fedora logo splash screen right after grub but well before nouveau. So what's driving that graphics capability? Maybe I'm confused.

---------- Post added at 02:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:46 AM ----------

Looks like F16b LiveCD uses isolinux not grub on boot. And the isolinux.cfg linux kernel parameter for basic video is: xdriver=vesa nomodeset.

The Fedora 15 LiveCD's EFI/BOOT folder contains a bootx64.conf, but no video related kernel parameters are used for any option. Despite the F15 LiveCD supporting EFI, the Mac only recognizes the BIOS booting partition, the EFI one doesn't even show up as an option. Yet I can use livecd-iso-to-disk to build an F15 Live CD EFI bootable USB stick that fits on a 2GB stick (but it's the F15 with dracut bug that prevents the mounting of the overlay).

Nevertheless, this F15 Live CD, EFI bootable USB stick does not show the Fedora splash screen after grub, I get a slight delay and then a single line of text indicating conflicting fb hw usage nouveaufb vs EFI VGA - and a frozen screen.

If I use xdriver=vesa nomodeset, I get quite a ways through the boot process, but then flashing screen, then frozen tty1 (text only on it). tty2 is working and I can restart.

If I use xdriver=vesa only, same as 3rd paragraph (original problem conflict with nouveau).

So I'm still stuck without EFI if I also want a GUI.