[sles-beta] SLES11SP4RC2 x86_64 autoyast installation - problem with reinstall

[Frederic Crozat]

Le mercredi 03 juin 2015 à 20:06 +0000, Joel Barbieri a écrit :
> Finally got a chance to work with SLES11SP4.  Cut our shrunken distro.
> 
> Mostly I see problems with re-installations.  The autoyast profile is set to "blow-up" the server each time, but stops with some sort of problem dealing with the partitions on a "second" install.
> 
> Hardware is Intel NUC Core i3 in UEFI mode with installation over the wire.  Problem is consistent.  Will try on a Dell r610 in UEFI tomorrow to see if the problem follows the hardware or software.  I have had similar grief in SLES11SP3 when switching a system from UEFI to BIOS mode where I have to nuke the drive manually to execute a re-install from scratch, but never when re-installing without switching BIOS modes.
> 
> To nuke a drive, I just escape to an available shell [alt-f2, or whichever is available], dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M count=1;reboot -f.  Don't forget the "-f" on the reboot.  This is the only way I have succeeded on Dell r610 at switching from UEFI back to BIOS mode.  Without it, I estimate the kernel or RAID card or some other driver re-writes the UEFI/GPT partition table back to disk, thus not effectively "cleaning" it.
> 
> I wouldn't call this a show stopper, but it is a major nuisance for product testing for me.  It wouldn't be so bad except for Server Manufacturers have made the BIOS/UEFI initialization so long that it physically hurts. UEFI was supposed to be faster, but apparently not on servers.  Does great on laptops and many modern desktops.
> 
> I gathered the /var/log/YaST directory in case SuSE would like to look at why it bombed.  I may deconstruct also if I have time.
> 
> Let me know if this is SR worthy by description.

Please open a SR, so that installer people can have a look.



-- 
Frederic Crozat
Enterprise Desktop Release Manager
SUSE