NetBSD amd64 hard disk install issues won't go away.

anarchosax · Feb 12, 2023

pin Try writing zeros to the first few Mb of your hard drive and test installing again or, use a gparted USB to erase the disk.

Thanks for the reply. OK, I will try that again tomorrow.

I was using the FAT32 as a place holder to delineate the partition configuration. Not sure why, but a FAT32 partition always takes much less time to format than ext2, ext3, ext4, btrfs, etc. when using gparted.

As an aside, I was able to successfully install Beta 10 on a ThinkPad T480s, but as soon as I ran $ startx, I would get xauth errors, so I tried 9.3 and that seems to install and work fine on the T480s, my first success. At this time, I am just running CWM, but plan on installing XFCE4 tomorrow.

pin · Feb 13, 2023

anarchosax but as soon as I ran $ startx, I would get xauth errors

This should basically boil down to a misconfiguration of either /etc/rc.conf or, /etc/hosts which causes generation of ~/.Xauthority to fail.

Your hostname= in /etc/rc.conf should match the hostname assigned in /etc/hosts which in turn should match whatever you assigned it to during installation, Host Name: and DNS Domain: in the installer.

pin · Feb 13, 2023

Just in case you wonder what I mean above.

When installing if you set Host Name: to mypc and DNS Domain: to my.private-domainyou should have hostname=mypc in your /etc/rc.conf and the following in /etc/hosts

#	$NetBSD: hosts,v 1.9 2013/11/24 07:20:01 dholland Exp $
#
# Host name database.
#
# This file contains addresses and aliases for local hosts whose names
# need to be resolvable during system boot; typically this includes only
# the address and FQDN for this machine's hostname.
#
# By default this file is consulted before DNS, so adding additional
# material here that then becomes out of date can lead to confusion.
# See nsswitch.conf(5).
#
::x			mypc.my.private-domain mypc
1xx.x.x.x		mypc.my.private-domain mypc
#
# RFC 1918 specifies that these networks are "internal":
# 10.0.0.0        -   10.255.255.255  (10/8 prefix)
# 172.16.0.0      -   172.31.255.255  (172.16/12 prefix)
# 192.168.0.0     -   192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

Note, that I've masked my IP-address with x, you don't need to touch those.

anarchosax · Feb 13, 2023

Thanks for the information. I had planned to use the Dell Vostro as the NetBSD 10 BETA BIOS amd64 test machine. I am currently using nwipe to wipe the hard disk. What partition table type should I create with gparted? bsd? msdos? Should I create a partition(s) (as I have done in the past)? What type, so that the NetBSD BETA installer will hopefully be able to find the hard disk?

pin · Feb 13, 2023

anarchosax I don't dual boot, so usually I just erase the disk and partition it during the install.

anarchosax What partition table type should I create with gparted? bsd?

gparted doesn't support this, you need a Linux kernel built with UFS support, which is off by default.

Have a look at this video it might help.

anarchosax · Feb 16, 2023

It took two days to wipe the disk, but everything went fine. I installed the system NetBSD 9.3 amd64, updated the system, copied and edited all of the necessary files. Everything was looking fine after a reboot, so I installed XFCE4 and Firefox. On the following reboot, I get the same error messages and the system refuses to complete the boot process:
[7.1692770] sd0: drive offline [7.1892875] WARNING: 1 error whilee detecting hardware; check system log. [7.1892875] boot device <unknown> [7.1892875] root device: acpibat0: normal capacity on 'charge state' [334.4280385] use one of: re0 athn0 cd0 [a-p] sd0 [a-p] ddb halt reboot

Rrvp · Feb 16, 2023

anarchosax Can you post a complete dmesg output (or, the /var/run/dmesg.boot file) somewhere, and also your /etc/fstab here?

anarchosax · Feb 17, 2023

rvp Thanks for the reply. Please bear in mind that the dmesg will reflect that I needed to do a hard shutdown to at all get the computer to shut off and reboot...

In addition, it should be noted that I have been unable to get the X system to start with "startx" despite installing XFCE4 - even before the hard shutdown...

Here is my /etc/fstab:
/dev/wd0a / ffs rw 1 1 /dev/wd0b none swap sw,dp 0 0 tmpfs /tmp tmpfs rw,-m=1777,-s=ram%25 kernfs /kern kernfs rw ptyfs /dev/pts ptyfs rw procfs /proc procfs rw /dev/cd0a /cdrom cd9660 ro,noauto tmpfs /var/shm tmpfs rw,-m1777,-sram%25
It should be noted that I have never dual booted wit NetBSD. That is a misunderstanding that crept in when discussing partitioning before install.

Edit---
Interestingly, although the system booted last time so that I could get dmesg and /etc/fstab, albeit still unable to start X, it again refuses to continue the boot process on a new boot, after these error messages again:
[7.1833165] sd0: drive offline [7.2038240] WARNING: 1 error while detecting hardware; check system log. [7.2038240] boot device <unknown> [7.2038240] root device: [7.4198751] use one of: re0 athn0 cd0 [a-p] sd0 [a-p] ddb halt reboot [7.4198751] root device:

Rrvp · Feb 17, 2023

anarchosax From your dmesg output:

[     9.353024] cd0(ahcisata0:4:0):  DEFERRED ERROR, key = 0x2
[    20.618644] cd0(ahcisata0:4:0):  DEFERRED ERROR, key = 0x2
[    30.293473] cd0(ahcisata0:4:0):  DEFERRED ERROR, key = 0x2
[    30.303478] cd0(ahcisata0:4:0):  DEFERRED ERROR, key = 0x2
[    35.656148] cd0(ahcisata0:4:0):  DEFERRED ERROR, key = 0x2

Can you disable the CD-ROM device in your BIOS setup? Or, just pull it out if it's removable?

[     6.941820] umass0 at uhub5 port 6 configuration 1 interface 0
[     6.941820] umass0: Generic (0xbda) USB2.0-CRW (0x138), rev 2.00/38.82, addr 4
[     6.941820] umass0: using SCSI over Bulk-Only
[     6.941820] scsibus0 at umass0: 2 targets, 1 lun per target
[     6.951826] sd0 at scsibus0 target 0 lun 0: <Generic-, Multi-Card, 1.00> disk removable
[     6.951826] sd0: drive offline

This, I think, is a RealTek Card Reader. Can you disable this too in the BIOS?

[     7.131915] kern info: [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (CAICOS 0x1002:0x6760 0x1028:0x04CC).
[     7.131915] kern info: [drm] register mmio base: 0xf7b20000
[     7.131915] kern info: [drm] register mmio size: 131072
[     7.131915] kern error: [drm:(/usr/src/sys/external/bsd/drm2/dist/drm/radeon/radeon_bios.c:725)radeon_get_bios] *ERROR* Unable to locate a BIOS ROM
[     7.131915] radeon0: autoconfiguration error: error: Fatal error during GPU init
[     7.131915] radeon0: autoconfiguration error: unable to attach drm: 22

Here, since you also have an Intel card, just disable the Radeon GPU.
In /boot.cfg:

userconf=disable radeon*

You can also disable (all) CD-ROM devices by adding:

userconf=disable cd*

Do this if you can't disable in the BIOS.

anarchosax · Feb 17, 2023

rvp
CD-ROM and the card reader are now disabled in the BIOS. Added the line to /boot.cfg. Does that mean that NetBSD doesn't play well with AMD/Radeon devices?

I disabled the web cam and microphone in the BIOS as well, as I appeared to get an error regarding the web cam at reboot.

Currently two issues remaining at this point:
1) The X system continues refusing to start, with an error
2) localhost wpa_supplicant [123]: Failed to add supported operating classes IE

I may have solved issue #1. It appears that with everything else going on, I forgot to add "xfce4-session" to the ~/.xinitrc file...

Rrvp · Feb 17, 2023

anarchosax Does that mean that NetBSD doesn't play well with AMD/Radeon devices?

No, older Radeons are in general well supported--don't know what's up with your HW.

anarchosax I may have solved issue #1. It appears that with everything else going on, I forgot to add "xfce4-session" to the ~/.xinitrc file...

So, actually only 1 issue remains?

The Xorg.0.log looks clean. You can see the server recognizing both your cards and then choosing the Intel one (indicated by the * prefixing the PCI bus ID):

[    47.114] (--) PCI:*(0@0:2:0) 8086:0126:1028:04cc rev 9, Mem @ 0xf6400000/4194304, 0xd0000000/268435456, I/O @ 0x0000f000/64
[    47.114] (--) PCI: (1@1:0:0) 1002:6760:1028:04cc rev 0, Mem @ 0xe0000000/268435456, 0xf7b20000/131072, I/O @ 0x0000e000/256, BIOS @ 0x????????/131072

anarchosax localhost wpa_supplicant [123]: Failed to add supported operating classes IE

Will need fuller logs. Disable wpa_supplicant in rc.conf, then run it in the foreground (non-daemon mode) on the command-line (under script(1)) with any verbose/debug flags turned on.

anarchosax · Feb 18, 2023

rvp Not sure how to run this. I tried both of the following:
$ script -c wpa_supplicant
$ script -c wpa_supplicant_flags="-B -s -i athn0 -D bsd -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf"

and lastly:
$ script -c wpa_supplicant wpa_supplicant_flags="-B -s -i athn0 -D bsd -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf"

Nothing useful as far as I could see...

Rrvp · Feb 18, 2023

anarchosax This should do it. Post mylog.txt

wpa_supplicant -f mylog.txt -d -d -i athn0 -D bsd -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

anarchosax · Feb 18, 2023

rvp OK, here you go. BTW, thanks for providing all of this help.

anarchosax · Feb 18, 2023

I will probably do a reinstall to NetBSD 10 BETA, so that I can do some testing as I promised, once I have a stable NetBSD 9.3 base to work from. I had also been planning to do the same with NetBSD 10 i386 BETA on my Lenovo T60, but there is an issue with the wireless driver wpi0 crashing all of the time. I don't know if you have seen my post on this forum about that, but I was wondering if you have heard of similar problems before. The laptop is still in pretty much perfect condition and could easily be used for beta testing, but its use as a laptop is somewhat limited if the wireless keeps crashing...

Rrvp · Feb 18, 2023

anarchosax I just can't see anything wrong here:

...
athn0: Event ASSOC (0) received
athn0: State: ASSOCIATING -> ASSOCIATED
athn0: Associated to a new BSS: BSSID=78:45:58:d5:19:5b
athn0: Associated with 78:45:58:d5:19:5b
...
EAPOL: SUPP_PAE entering state AUTHENTICATED
EAPOL: Supplicant port status: Authorized
EAPOL: SUPP_BE entering state IDLE
EAPOL authentication completed - result=SUCCESS

So, you've associated and authorized just fine. Then the tear-down--after you typed the Ctrl-C, presumably.
What exactly is the WiFi issue apart from that error message?

anarchosax my Lenovo T60, but there is an issue with the wireless driver wpi0 crashing all of the time.

That wpi driver looks old. You could try the NG drivers that're being worked on and see if that works out better.

anarchosax BTW, thanks for providing all of this help.

'S what the board is for.

anarchosax · Feb 19, 2023

rvp Hmm. It seems that I stopped getting the wpa_supplicant error messages when I shut off the CD-ROM and the card reader in the BIOS... Weird. Anywho, thanks again. This topic appears to be solved - at least for now.