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i3 fresh install

I was expecting a straightforward install, especially after reading the comments of @mandog here and here, but nothing of the sort.

After a few rough spots, which I plan on reporting elsewhere, I'm looking at calamares's 'manual partition' page, which ... is blank, ie. it shows no devices or partitions, although the debug output for calamares does show that the program had earlier recognized and rejected one partition as a potential install target.

I haven't found an alternate installer, but if there is one, I'm open to doing a text-based install.

Is there a guide, or a collection of 'gotchas' for the install procedure? It's been a few months since the release, so I was hoping by now there would be documentation of any 'routine' problems, but I don't see any.

Re: i3 fresh install

Reply #1 –
Give us some feedback on the hardware at least because your experience being so different than others is of interest.
I don't like i3 so I am not trying it, but I doubt the problem you faced is desktop related.

Re: i3 fresh install

Reply #2 –
The target for this is a vanilla commodity laptop, the same one that I've used for evaluating many other linux distros, including many others that use calamares. I've never had such a problem, but I guess there is a first time for everything. The artix live media includes a graphical partition manager outside of calamares,which did recognize the device, correctly identified its partitions, and was used to delete one.

In order to address possible  permission issues, I tried calamares both as sudo and then afterwards as su, to the same result.

I should add that originally calamares refused to start, claiming that it could not find enough free space on the device, so that is a second indication that it internally, before reaching the partition screen, was correctly recognizing the device (why it should behave that way is worthy of a bug report IMO). Once I deleted a partition using aforesaid partition manager, calamares would run.

I'll also take this opportunity to mention a few other possibly related calamares issues: The manual partitioning option was the only one with a text label to the right of its icon, and the other three options reliably seg-faulted calamares. After a seg-fault, running calamares a first time would seg-fault upon start, and running calamares a second time would 'succeed'.

I have verified the sha256sum of the iso download.

Re: i3 fresh install

Reply #3 –
It was a while ago I installed i3 and its still running well apart from I installed JWM straight after the install.
I partitioned the desired drive with the installer I have 5 to choose from I use legacy Bios and the disks are Msdos   so that may or may not be the reason i don't have problems not sure.
But reading other forums others are lately having similar problems as you so its not confined to Artix or Calarmes but seems to affect a lot of users.
 

Re: i3 fresh install

Reply #4 –
@mandog I apologize in advance for being blunt, but your response makes no sense, and further, reflects a total lack of understanding of the basics of issuing a static ISO, and more. The ISO is a self-contained software environment. When it was released, back in August 2017, either it worked, or it didn't. Any bugs or features that exist now, existed then. That can't change now six months later due to software events outside the ISO.

Unless you want to tell me that someone managed to update the ISO without changing the issue date, and without changing the sha256sum.

Re: i3 fresh install

Reply #5 –
Quote from: boruch – on
I was expecting a straightforward install, especially after reading the comments of @mandog here and here, but nothing of the sort.
[...]I haven't found an alternate installer, but if there is one, I'm open to doing a text-based install.

Is there a guide, or a collection of 'gotchas' for the install procedure? It's been a few months since the release, so I was hoping by now there would be documentation of any 'routine' problems, but I don't see any.

See our wiki, especially the console installation article.

Re: i3 fresh install

Reply #6 –
Thanks @nous , the install instructions seemed to go smoothly, but I've now spent just about two hours trying to get grub to work, and still need more time to get grub to boot.

Some feedback:

1] the instructions include the perfectly reasonable-sonding "pacman -Syy", but the very next instruction, "basestrap" seems to do the same thing at start.

2] the system downloaded an LTS kernel, which was great, but it downloaded 4.7, and 4.14 is the newer LTS.

3] The instructions direct the user to run nano in order to edit the locales file. However, nano failed to load for me, giving the message, "error opening terminal: xterm-termite" ( I just used grep & sed).

4] Based upon grub's output, the os-prober is only finding other OS's if their partitions are mounted. That point is missing from the instructions.

Re: i3 fresh install

Reply #7 –
Quote from: boruch – on
@mandog I apologize in advance for being blunt, but your response makes no sense, and further, reflects a total lack of understanding of the basics of issuing a static ISO, and more. The ISO is a self-contained software environment. When it was released, back in August 2017, either it worked, or it didn't. Any bugs or features that exist now, existed then. That can't change now six months later due to software events outside the ISO.

Unless you want to tell me that someone managed to update the ISO without changing the issue date, and without changing the sha256sum.
I really don't know what you are talking about.
Calarmes found my hardware and not yours is that so,?
All I said was I do not have any MS crap or GPD drives just basic Msdos and sata drives, with a modern MB, and  CPU, I reckon if it was a bucket of poo it would still install as everything is Linux compatible. and it will stay that way.
Calarmes found my 5 msdos drives it did not your for some reason.
I just fired up the i3 live iso it still lists my drives so all is fine, nothing has changed or am I telling lies ?.
Are you aware that this is a net install not a fixed one so nothing on the iso is now relevant to the iso but the install will be 100% up-to-date 

Re: i3 fresh install

Reply #8 –
2] the system downloaded an LTS kernel, which was great, but it downloaded 4.7, and 4.14 is the newer LTS.

Well the latest in Arch is.
 x86_64    Testing    linux-lts    4.9.68-1  x86_64    Core    linux-lts    4.9.67-1 arch only releases stable not beta kernels it leaves Manjaro to mess up users installs with beta kernels. I think  4.14  becomes   the LTS in January

Re: i3 fresh install

Reply #9 –
@boruch Thanks for the feedback, will update the wiki "soon". Official LTS is still at 4.9 - os-prober never seemed to have trouble scanning all my partitions for OSes, even unmounted ones. Weird.

Re: i3 fresh install

Reply #10 –
Quote from: nous – on
@boruch Thanks for the feedback, will update the wiki "soon". Official LTS is still at 4.9 - os-prober never seemed to have trouble scanning all my partitions for OSes, even unmounted ones. Weird.
The user as many others is unwilling to help where is the system info you asked for.
Its like going to a garage and saying "my car is broke I'm not going to tell you where it is mind you or the make and model now fix it"?
The iso here works fine both the internal and external partition programs find all drives partitions remember I have 5 drives all with multible Linux distros, If os-prober is not he has a problem else-ware as again it discovers mine fine in fact it is one of the faster ones Manjaro take a hour, void 5mins.  As for not knowing the iso structure I co Developed the architect arch installer so yes I know nothing
 

Re: i3 fresh install

Reply #11 –
I guess it would be pretty simple for someone to register in all systemd based distros' forum and tell them their installer is crap and it will not install.  Then vanish.  Those who are willing to try them they would go and see people having problems installing.

So forgive us paranoid folk if we misunderstand the motives.