Missing kernel after 9.10 installation from extra partition

[Martin Hanus]

I tried to do fresh instalation of Ubuntu 9.10 on netbook from iso mounted as extra partition on the netbook (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromLinux). The instalation completed but I was not able to boot into it. I have realized that kernel - vmlinuz is missing, so I had to copy it there from the installation iso and to do some workaround with grub. After that it was OK, but I do not consider it as user friendly (originally I tried to use ext4, but my original kernel does not have drivers and so I had to repeat the installation on ext3 filesystem) and for newcommers.

[WeatherGod (ben-v-root)]

Sounds more like something went wrong with the installation process. Did you verify the checksum of the .iso file before doing the installation? If it does verify, is this behavior repeatable (if possible)?

[Zeft (slack-dna)]

confirmed here,

I have downloaded ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso three times(spend all night), from three different mirror, all of them match the checksum with the one from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes,

three time installation with the same result.

1. install from harddisk, success, reboot, no karmic entry
2. install from usb flash drive, success, reboot, no karmic entry
3. install from CD (finally decided to buy one!), success, reboot, no karmic entry.....

from three attempt, everytime the installation start, it say "can't unmount /cdrom..", so I do

sudo -l -r -f /cdrom

installation running, but I never found vmlinuz file in /boot directory, so I started to look one myself.
if I copied the vmlinuz from the iso, i got kernel panic. so I downloaded kernel-image-2.6.31-14-generic-di_2.6.31-14.48_amd64.udeb, using live cd, chroot to the install target partition, and do

sudo dpkg -i kernel-image-2.6.31-14-generic-di_2.6.31-14.48_amd64.udeb
grub-install /dev/sda
grub-install --recheck /dev/sda # I cant see any karmic output here
#cant remember how many -grub like- command I've tried...

and finally reboot,

still no karmic entry!, but the vmlinuz is now there, so I can boot to my new installation... pheww...

[Zeft (slack-dna)]

update, I tried to reinstall using CD, because when I'm doing the third attempt (install from CD) I remember the cd led wasnt blinking, although I'm sure I've chosen the correct boot order in the bios, and have booted from CD.

just to make sure nothing went wrong, and this time I've erased all the installation file in the harddisk ( used in first attempt install from jaunty ), now the cd led was blinking and everything went fine, the karmic entry is shown, and vmlinuz is there.

so it seem the problem is from the first time I try to install from harddisk, somehow when installing from CD the files from harddisk was used instead from CD. whereas the file which copied to harddisk may have been corrupted (I'm to exhousted to confirm this though..)

[WeatherGod (ben-v-root)]

Wow, thank you for the exhaustive investigation. This information will prove very useful.

The discovery about the installation process possibly using the existing files on the disk is curious. Maybe this is what happened for the installation from disk and from the usb flash drive? I think I am going to set this bug report under the installation package instead of the Ubuntu package.

[WeatherGod (ben-v-root)]

Seems to be a problem with the installation possibly using the wrong file sets.

[Andrew (andrewkvalheim)]

I discovered that the kernel was missing after installing Ubuntu 9.10 from a USB drive. Here is what I did to complete the installation successfully:

1) Make a bootable USB drive from ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso using USB Startup Disk Creator.
2) Boot to USB live session.
3) Unmount the USB filesystem:
        $ sudo umount -l -r -f /cdrom
4) Delete all partitions on the internal hard drive using GParted. (Just in case these interfere somehow)
5) Install Ubuntu 9.10 to the entire internal hard drive. Do not reboot.
6) Verify that /media/internal-drive/boot/vmlinuz* does not exist.
7) Make sure there is a working internet connection.
8) Chroot into the new installation:
        sudo mount -t proc proc /media/internal-drive/proc
        sudo mount -t sysfs sysfs /media/internal-drive/sys
        sudo mount -o bind /dev /media/internal-drive/dev
        sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf /media/internal-drive/etc/
        sudo chroot /media/internal-drive/
9) Reinstall linux-image-2.6.31-14-generic:
        apt-get clean
        apt-get update
        apt-get install --reinstall linux-image-2.6.31-14-generic
10) Verify that /media/internal-drive/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic does exist.
11) Reboot into new system.

Curiously, the missing kernel problem did not occur when installing to another computer earlier with the same USB drive. And I still have no idea why this happened in the first place. How can I be sure that this hasn't broken other packages as well?

[WeatherGod (ben-v-root)]

Andrew, hopefully, the regular package update process would be sufficient to make sure that the other packages are not corrupted. At the very least, the dependency tree should have validated by now.

[WeatherGod (ben-v-root)]

Andrew, the other bug report has been set to private, but I have been told that the dump was incomplete because your system was not fully up to date. If you can get your system updated, and then see if you have the same problem, you can then post the dump again to this bug report. Or, it may be possible that the bug will resolve itself after the update, so let us know if that happens as well.

[WeatherGod (ben-v-root)]

Whoops! Wrong bug report.... ignore reply 8

[Simon Quigley (tsimonq2)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. There have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time you reported the bug and your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates. It would help us a lot if you could test it on a currently supported Ubuntu version. When you test it and it is still an issue, kindly upload the updated logs by running only once:
apport-collect 474196

and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ubiquity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]