F18 install from USB on Lenovo S205

[googlexxx]

I just installed Fedora 18 DVD.iso with flash disk, please be advised that you should shutdown your network, or
Fedora tactitly install everything form INTERNET.

you can visit my blog. it has detailed description:

[googlexxx]

Using the following code to install Fedora 18 DVD ISO directly!

1) make linux DVD iso:
fdisk -l : locate the U disk, e.g.  /dev/sdc1
livecd-iso-to-disk --format --reset-mbr Fedora-18-x86_64-netinst.iso  /dev/sdc1
mount -t ext4 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/udisk
mount -o loop Fedora-18-x86_64-DVD.iso  /mnt/iso
cp -r /mnt/iso/images     /mnt/udisk
cp Fedora-18-x86_64-DVD.iso /mnt/udisk.
umount /mnt/udisk

[chrismurphy]

Originally Posted by googlexxx

I just installed Fedora 18 DVD.iso with flash disk, please be advised that you should shutdown your network, or Fedora tactitly install everything form INTERNET.

I haven't experienced this with the DVD ISO with a computer that has internet access in any of the ~ 50 test installs I've done. This periodically comes up in prerelease testing as a bug.

[george_toolan]

This is usually a feature and not a bug. If you enable the updates repository during the installation it will download the updates from the internet ;-)

So what were the problems with Fedora 17?

The Lenovo IdeaPad s205 has a buggy UEFI implementation, but you can boot the Fedora 17 DVD in BIOS compatibility mode if you enter BIOS setup first. You don't have to change or save anything. Just enter BIOS setup and exit. Then the Fedora 17 DVD should boot in BIOS compatibility mode. Otherwise the little bugger will boot the Fedora 17 DVD in UEFI mode.

So did you install in UEFI mode or BIOS compatibility mode?

For further reference about the boot "bug" please read the second part of this post ---> http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=102712

Btw the s205 doesn't have any secure boot, because it's way too old for that.

[chrismurphy]

Originally Posted by george_toolan

This is usually a feature and not a bug.

Not when it happens by default from DVD ISO, and can't be disabled.

If you enable the updates repository during the installation it will download the updates from the internet ;-)

Fedora 18. It doesn't have that option. The DVD ISO installer defaults to auto-detecting install media, which should be packages on the DVD media. You can change this to "On the network > Closest mirror" and then effectively it mimics the Netinstl.iso where everything is downloaded.

The Lenovo IdeaPad s205 has a buggy UEFI implementation, but you can boot the Fedora 17 DVD in BIOS compatibility mode if you enter BIOS setup first.

Ok the problem isn't that he's having a problem booting, the problem is he's getting stuck on the radeon driver loading, see the photos he posted.

For further reference about the boot "bug" please read the second part of this post ---> http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=102712

He already has Windows 8 on the computer and working, so this isn't applicable. And Linux is booting well beyond the kernel and initramfs, it's just getting stuck later on with what looks like video driver problems.

---------- Post added at 11:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:34 PM ----------

Originally Posted by samurro

I am going to follow your instructions but I guess you have misunderstood me. I already got the F18 installer running with using grub commands for nomodeset. My current USB stick is made with the dd method, which took extremly long.

Everything seemed fine, I used the predefined layout and after I was done with installation my netbook didn't want to boot any OS at all. So I used a gparted live media to format those fedora partitions, and my Windows 8 worked again.

So Iam not sure, anything will be different with 'rhgb' and 'quiet'. I rather think there is a problem with the partition sheme installed with anaconda OR/AND grub beeing not installed correctly, for whatever reason.

The problem from my perspective is that you're basically saying "it didn't work" but you're not providing any detail to help you troubleshoot the problem. There are thousands of ways this can fail, but you have to provide information other than "didn't want to boot any OS at all" I have no idea what that means. Tell us what DID happen, not what didn't happen.

[rubydice]

Originally Posted by samurro

So I used a gparted live media to format those fedora partitions, and my Windows 8 worked again.

Samurro, I believe I am having the same issue as you are except my windows 8 came pre-loaded. I can boot fedora 18 but not windows 8. How exactly did you format the fedora partitions to get windows 8 to work? When you say no os is booting or loading, when you try to boot windows 8 is it on the black grub2 screen with secureboot disabled? The error message I get is windows MBR configuration file is missing and the error to reboot and insert installation media. (which lenovo conveniently doesn't ship with :/ )

I think we're coming across the same issue with windows 8 not playing nice. Did you install fedora 18 in non-uefi mode? (I hate how windows is making this such a nightmare)

If you could possibly recreate and tell us some of the steps you did. I've read a few guides online that said you have to change some configuration files to add windows 8 as a menu entry to grub but I'm not sure if you've done that already.

[chrismurphy]

On UEFI hardware, you should use the firmware's boot manager menu to choose which OS to boot. Using GRUB as a boot manager is less than reliable on (U)EFI in my experience, and is a carry over from BIOS when we didn't have built-in boot managers.

---------- Post added at 08:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:03 PM ----------

@rubydice, If you can boot from a LiveCD, use Firefox to download boot info script, and run it and post the result.txt file to the forum, that might be helpful.

[samurro]

Alot of information is getting mixed up. The first screenshot is a problem I already solved.
I had installed Fedora 18 with the mentioned steps of using nomodeset through grub to install it. BUT after I installed it and Anaconda told me to restart to computer to fully boot F18, nothing happened. The BIOS did load and then I had to chose from which media I want to boot, if I chose my harddrive where I installed F18 the PC would reboot and come to that bootscreen again. No sign of grub or any other bootloader. (its like the menu you get when pressing F12 while boot, boot device order)

So then I tried to get my Win8 working somehow again, which was installed before I installed F18. So I simply tried to delete the partitions fedora 18 created with gparted live media and it worked. I am now writing from my s205 using my previously installed Windows 8.

BUT I wanted to try F18, if possible in dualboot with Win 8, if not then only fedora 18, but it needs to work after the installation not like my last try, where my computer didn't want to boot any OS!

PS:
I tried to install F18 two times succesfully to the point, where the installer told me to reboot. Once with predefined partition setup and after that I tried a custom setup, which was very simple.
I read somewhere that a problem with linux installations can appear when the preinstalled OS (in my case win8) was installed in EFI mode, my problem is, I don't know how I installed it. All I know was that I got also some problems with the win 8 installation, I think it was due EFI implementation of s205, but somehow I got it to work.
Is there a method to check under which setting my Windows 8 got installed EFI or non-EFI?

[chrismurphy]

Originally Posted by samurro

BUT after I installed it and Anaconda told me to restart to computer to fully boot F18, nothing happened. The BIOS did load and then I had to chose from which media I want to boot, if I chose my harddrive where I installed F18 the PC would reboot and come to that bootscreen again. No sign of grub or any other bootloader.

This could be a firmware bug, or a bug between the firmware and GRUB. There is a "BIOS" update for your computer, 4BCN24WW.exe. You should confirm/deny that it's been applied. I'm not finding any evidence your firmware is (U)EFI based. I even downloaded the user manual and I'm not finding language suggestive that it's anything other than conventional BIOS. This is relatively straightforward to find out after you've booted off Fedora install media, get to a shell (control-alt-f2) and type:

efibootmgr -v

If you get a message "Fatal: Could open either sysfs...." then it's BIOS. If you get several lines each beginning with the word Boot, then it's EFI.

Next, I suggest botting off LiveCD such as "Fedora-18-x86_64-Live-Desktop.iso" so that you can use Firefox to download bootinfoscript. This script will collect information about partitions, and boot loaders, installed on your hard drive. If you have the DVD and don't want to download the LiveCD, you can use wget from shell. Something like:

wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/files/bootinfoscript/0.61/bootinfoscript-061.tar.gz

Once you have it using either LiveCD or DVD, and untar it (tar -xf <file>), you might need to set permissions on it correctly:

chmod 755 bootinfoscript

Then execute it:

./bootinfoscript

Then you'll have a file, RESULTS.txt in that directory. Again, with LiveCD, you can use Firefox to post that file directly to the forum. From DVD, you have to use cp it to a different USB stick, or mount your Windows volume and write it somewhere reasonable where you can find it once you boot Windows, or you have to scp it somewhere (a remote computer) - and then post it.