Installer crashes on Intel iMac

[Jari Lammi]

If I disable the grub installation in order to protect the internal EFI boot partition on iMac, the installer crashes. Since there isn't a working WLAN connection yet for the intel iMac, I haven't the syslog available in here. But here's the output retyped from the "Installer crashed" window:

File "/usr/bin/ubiquity", line 130, in ?
  install(sys.argv[1])
File "/usr/bin/ubiquity", line 55, in install
  ret = wizard.run()
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 266, in run
  self.process_step()
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 741, in process_step
  self.mountpoints_to_summary()
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 1029, in mountpoints_to_summary
  self.progress_loop()
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 538, in progress_loop
  raise RuntimeError, ("Install failed with exit code %s; see "
RuntimeError: Install failed with exit code 1; see /var/log/installer/syslog and /var/log/syslog

[Jari Lammi (jmmlammi)]

Screenshot included in here.

[Carthik Sharma (carthik)]

Could you please attach /var/log/installer/syslog, /var/log/syslog, and /var/log/partman to this bug, using the "Add Attachment" link on the bug's web page?
You could use a USB Drive to get it off the computer with a LiveCD session running.
The traceback alone is not very helpful for debugging.
Thanks in advance.

[Jari Lammi (jmmlammi)]

Here are the requested logs.

The partition setup sees the EFI system partition as well. Should it really do that, since the Boot Camp beta serves the host OS a legacy BIOS booting option.

[Jari Lammi (jmmlammi)]

Basically what I've done was that when the manual disc partitioning program finds these three partitions:

/media/EFI system partition (200 MB) Partition 1 SATA1 Primary [sda1]
swap (1024 MB) Partition 3 SATA1 Primary [sda3]
/ (24 GB) Partition 4 SATA1 Primary [sda4]

I simply disable the sda1 from the list.

The partition system table looks like this (on Mac OS X) at the same time:

fdisk: 1> print
Disk: /dev/rdisk0 geometry: 60801/255/63 [976773168 sectors]
Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting Ending
 #: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 0 0 1 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 976773167] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
 3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
 4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

The grub on hd0 seems to be failing anyway. If you guys can determine this bug without letting the installer to stir up the EFI system partition, that would be much welcome.

[Mr. B.B.C. (mrbbc)]

- there is no hd0 drive on an Intel iMac; the harddisk is mounted as sda (special drive - dunno why, perhaps because Serial-ATA); but the installer script runs grub for hd0, no matter whatever you set up in the previous dialog.

[Mr. B.B.C. (mrbbc)]

Colin Watson schrieb:
> *** This bug is a duplicate of bug 52779 ***
>
> I'm afraid Intel Macs are not currently supported by ubiquity, although
> you may be able to get them to work using the alternate install CD. See
> bug 52779.

Useless; the alternate install CD doesn't even comes further. The main
problem seems to be the GUID partition table used by Apple. You can boot
from a Linux CD/DVD but not from harddisk. You might need elilo to boot;
as I told, you should consider http://www.mactel-linux.org to figure out
what to do to make Ubuntu Mac-compatible.

You can get a rudimentary Ubuntu without X11 working, you might then
copy the LiveCD-Ubuntu above the installation, but you'll get a very
awful Linux installation far beyond the Ubuntu philosophy... the
description by itself is not useful for laymen - the mactel-linux guys
didn't write a script for the installation and their instructions are
for example "It is strongly advised to dist-upgrade the newly installed
Ubuntu distribution and to remove all the automatic mechanisms of the
Live CD" (there is not really an instruction how you can update this
kind of Ubuntu and remove the autologin stuff). I think you'll get an
Linux that is really dangerous, maybe even more vulnerable than any
Windows version ever was.

The new Intel Macs are now for about a year on the market and still not
supported by any Linux distribution. Windows XP (SP2 and above) on the
other hand is working fine since a few months - completely; full graphic
and sound. It installs from an ordinary Setup CD, not adapted for Intel
Macs...

BTW: don't forget that sound doesn't work either with the Live CD.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I'm afraid Intel Macs are not currently supported by ubiquity, although you may be able to get them to work using the alternate install CD. See bug 52779.

[kcraam (mcollado)]

Thanks, I will try with que alternate intall CD.

El dc 23 de 08 del 2006 a les 12:25 +0000, en/na Colin Watson va
escriure:

> *** This bug is a duplicate of bug 52779 ***
>
> I'm afraid Intel Macs are not currently supported by ubiquity, although
> you may be able to get them to work using the alternate install CD. See
> bug 52779.
>
> ** This bug has been marked a duplicate of bug 52779
> Crash during install in a MacMini Intel Core Duo
>

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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