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45925
Ubuntu install on an M600 Blade
I'm trying to install Ubuntu on a few M600 blades, but I'm running into some issues. I'm thinking that these might be some sort of driver/hardware compatibility issues, but I'm not sure.
1. During boot, right after the grub menu, the screen goes black. Nothing is visible. I can only watch it boot if I choose recovery mode from the grub menu.
2. Boot hangs right around when it is mounting the file systems. It goes into a Busybox (initramfs) prompt and just sits there waiting for intervention. If I just type "exit" and hit enter, it will finish booting and I'll get to the login prompt.
If I'm not booting into recovery mode, I can't see it hang. It just stays at a blank screen. But still, if I type 'exit' and hit enter, it will finish booting and video will come back right before it gets to the logon prompt.
Any ideas?
RAID controller is SAS 6. No array configured (I've tried with a RAID0 array, but had the same results.)
dsdonut
4 Posts
1
October 19th, 2012 09:00
I've found the workaround! Here is a link to what I found (although references a different blade model, it was the same issue.) ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php
Basically you have to tell it to be more patient while booting up so that the SAS module has time to start. Edit /etc/default/grub and change
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
to
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rootdelay=60"
The thread I linked to said to set it to 90, but in my case, it worked at 60. I tried 30, but that wasn't enough time.
DELL-Jonathan S
153 Posts
0
October 18th, 2012 15:00
Hi dsdonut,
I have heard of this type of thing happening before as a consequence of the driver included with Ubuntu that binds to the SAS 6i/R card. For some reason it takes 30 seconds or so to initialize, so the boot procedure can't complete immediately, but the driver does complete loading and so the root filesystem can be mounted by the time you exit the recovery shell. I don't recall what the workaround was but I am wondering if maybe you can do a kernel update to get a newer driver in there, or if that is even appropriate for your OS version -- what Ubuntu version is installed, by the way?
dsdonut
4 Posts
0
October 19th, 2012 08:00
Thanks for the reply.
I was on kernel 3.2.0-29-generic, and I just tried upgrading to 3.2.0-32-generic, but that didn't seem to have any effect. If there is a work around, I'd love to find it. I don't really want to put these servers into production this way. Sure, I could document this behavior, but I'm sure this would still cause problems next time someone else reboots one of these boxes and it doesn't come up on its own.
dsdonut
4 Posts
0
October 19th, 2012 09:00
I know the Dell SAS 6/IR (which is in these M600s) is an LSI product. Does anyone know the specific LSI model? Dell doesn't provide drivers for Ubuntu/Debian, but maybe LSI does.
dinesh85
1 Message
0
February 21st, 2013 07:00
Hi,
I need a help regarding this post. I saw also the solution to this post. Actually I also see the same issue. I am trying to install Ubuntu Server 12.04 in Ericsson blade. Some how I am managed to proceed until GRUB menu screen. After I select the Install Ubuntu Server from GRUB MENU, the screen goes blank.
The problem I see now is when I try to follow the solution approach given in this thread, I pressed c to enter GRUB terminal. there when I accessed to /etc/default/... I could not find grub,cfg file. Also not able to use sudo, not able to edit any file using any editor.
I almost searched all possible options in the web. But still I could not follow up and doesnt work in my case. Kindly suggest me how to solve this step by step.
Looking forward for your reply.
Thanks in Advance!!!!
Regards,
Dinesh
DELL-Jonathan S
153 Posts
0
February 21st, 2013 10:00
If you are getting this error when trying to install there might be a misconfiguration of some sort. I have no experience with Ericsson servers so I could be way off base here, but I think if the initial GRUB screen comes up and you can attempt to start the install, then it goes out, maybe there is a problem when it tries to change video modes i.e. perhaps driver compatibility (which may or may not be resolved when the system installation is completed). Can you hit F6 and select nomodeset to make sure there is an X by it, then proceed with the installation?