Bug#806164: installation-reports: jessie install on dell xps 13 9350 (grub-installer issues)

[Carl Myers]

So, I have some bad news - the issue may not be completely fixed.  Or, I might
have missed something.  I tried to build an iso by following the steps to check
out the debian-install stuff[1] but found that the build_all target did not make
the netinst ISO as I expected.

I next found some directions for altering an existing iso, so I grabbed the net
inst and followed the rough directions here[2].  I found I had to modify the
directions to generate an efi compatible CD with these here[3].  The directions
didn't seem to work due to genisoimage not recognizing all the arguments, so as
per the workaround here[4] I had to grab a copy of the genisoimage binary from
the ubuntu package.

To modify the image, I rsync'd it to a new directory, then deleted the
grub-installer 1.127 package and replaced it with a copy of 1.128.  I updated
the md5sums.txt file and the "Packages.gz" file (leaving everything the same
except updating the verison, the path to the package, and the hashes).

I then redid the install - and it WORKED!  Got no grub error.  Unfortunately,
when I rebooted after the install, I still have the problem where it drops me
into a simple grub command line, and fails to boot the rest of the way.  Either
something is messed up in my boot loader that a fresh install did not fix, or
the fix in the grub-installer package alone is not enough (although it
definitely is working better since it doesn't get errors during install
anymore).

-Carl



[1] http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/doc/internals/ch04.html#id321776
[2] 
https://debmintux.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/howto-create-a-custom-debian-installer-netinstall-iso/
[3] 
http://askubuntu.com/questions/457528/how-do-i-create-an-efi-bootable-iso-of-a-customized-version-of-ubuntu
[4] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31831268/genisoimage-and-uefi
-- 
Carl Myers 
PGP Key ID 3537595B
PGP Key fingerprint 9365 0FAF 721B 992A 0A20  1E0D C795 2955 3537 595B



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Bug#806164: installation-reports: jessie install on dell xps 13 9350 (grub-installer issues)

[Carl Myers]

I got my system working.  I repeated the chroot experiment from above, confirmed
that this time the initrd contained cryptsetup and the other necessary tools (it
did), and I was able to then run the grub installer.

Since in the past when I did this it didn't work, I was trying to think of
something different to try, so I tried making a symlink with a "more expected"
name:


ln -s /dev/nvme0 /dev/sdb
grub-install /dev/sdb


I dunno if just running "grub-install" would have been enough, or if it worked
specifically because I faked it out with a symlink like this, but after that I
rebooted and grub seems to be installed correctly and is able to boot into
debian.  I'm happy my machine works now but I'm sorry I wasn't able to confirm
the fix for you - whatever has been donein grub-installer 1.128 has improved the
problem but not totally fixed it - hopefully these details will help you figure
out the remaining problems (possibly with the package that provides
grub-install, if it is differnet from grub-installer?  otherwise some other code
path in there...)

Thanks!
-Carl

-- 
Carl Myers 
PGP Key ID 3537595B
PGP Key fingerprint 9365 0FAF 721B 992A 0A20  1E0D C795 2955 3537 595B



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Bug#806164: installation-reports: jessie install on dell xps 13 9350 (grub-installer issues)

[Cyril Brulebois]

Carl Myers  (2015-12-02):
> Is there a nightly ISO build I can use, or do I have to build my own?  Not
> sure how to confirm the fix is in any given ISO I might download...

I think you'd need to wait for a weekly, which means monday; that's because
grub-installer is not included in netboot images, so fetched over the
network. You might find a way by setting the right boot parameters, but that
might break other bits.

> In case there isn't, I'm reading the wiki page about simple-cdd and
> building a custom debian installer, and looking into how to produce my own
> install CD with the updated packages now.

I haven't used simple-cdd yet, but if that might help, I have a debian-cd
setup locally, and baring my (limited) upload bandwidth I could probably
build and push an image for you to test, somewhen today. Would that work for
you?

Looking at debian-stretch-DI-alpha4-amd64-netinst.iso's file list, it
definitely contains grub-installer, so the tricky part I've mentioned in my
first paragraph should disappear with a similar image.

Mraw,
KiBi.


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Bug#806164: installation-reports: jessie install on dell xps 13 9350 (grub-installer issues)

[Carl Myers]

That would be great - I have a colo server at cmyers.org you could upload to,
I'll email you credentials directly.

If it's too much trouble, I can wait until monday, but I'm glad to be the guinea
pig and try this out if you don't mind.

-Carl

On Thu, Dec 03, 2015 at 12:52:22PM +0100, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2015 12:52:22 +0100
> From: Cyril Brulebois <k...@debian.org>
> To: Carl Myers <cmy...@cmyers.org>
> Cc: Julien Cristau <jcris...@debian.org>, 806...@bugs.debian.org,
>  806...@bugs.debian.org
> Subject: Re: Bug#806164: installation-reports: jessie install on dell xps
>  13 9350 (grub-installer issues)
> Organization: Debian
> 
> Carl Myers <cmy...@cmyers.org> (2015-12-02):
> > Is there a nightly ISO build I can use, or do I have to build my own?  Not
> > sure how to confirm the fix is in any given ISO I might download...
> 
> I think you'd need to wait for a weekly, which means monday; that's because
> grub-installer is not included in netboot images, so fetched over the
> network. You might find a way by setting the right boot parameters, but that
> might break other bits.
> 
> > In case there isn't, I'm reading the wiki page about simple-cdd and
> > building a custom debian installer, and looking into how to produce my own
> > install CD with the updated packages now.
> 
> I haven't used simple-cdd yet, but if that might help, I have a debian-cd
> setup locally, and baring my (limited) upload bandwidth I could probably
> build and push an image for you to test, somewhen today. Would that work for
> you?
> 
> Looking at debian-stretch-DI-alpha4-amd64-netinst.iso's file list, it
> definitely contains grub-installer, so the tricky part I've mentioned in my
> first paragraph should disappear with a similar image.
> 
> Mraw,
> KiBi.



-- 
Carl Myers 
PGP Key ID 3537595B
PGP Key fingerprint 9365 0FAF 721B 992A 0A20  1E0D C795 2955 3537 595B



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Bug#806164: installation-reports: jessie install on dell xps 13 9350 (grub-installer issues)

[Carl Myers]

Is there a nightly ISO build I can use, or do I have to build my own?  Not sure
how to confirm the fix is in any given ISO I might download...

In case there isn't, I'm reading the wiki page about simple-cdd and building a
custom debian installer, and looking into how to produce my own install CD with
the updated packages now.

-Carl


-- 
Carl Myers 
PGP Key ID 3537595B
PGP Key fingerprint 9365 0FAF 721B 992A 0A20  1E0D C795 2955 3537 595B



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Bug#806164: installation-reports: jessie install on dell xps 13 9350 (grub-installer issues)

[Cyril Brulebois]

Julien Cristau  (2015-11-28):
> Control: reassign -1 grub-installer 1.117
> Control: severity -1 important
> Control: retitle -1 grub-installer: too much hardcoding of device names, 
> fails with /dev/nvme*
> 
> On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 00:06:57 +0100, Julien Cristau wrote:
> 
> > Installation went fine (well, had to stay close to the screen because
> > the text was quite small on this high-dpi display) until the
> > grub-installer step.  Which failed horribly, I think because the
> > /dev/nvme0n1 device name for the drive isn't expected.  See attached
> > excerpt from syslog (contains a few invocations of grub-installer while
> > I was trying to understand what was going on; the last one has
> > DEBCONF_DEBUG and set -x enabled.
> > 
> Reassigning.

sid/stretch should be behaving better since 1.122 was supposed to
introduce support for NVMe devices, but I botched it. 1.128 will
hopefully fix this, but confirmations are welcome:
  
https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/d-i/grub-installer.git/commit/?id=fa658f8a8fbd9179a5ae3abae14b6c906f6ee620

Backports of the relevant commits for grub-installer, along with:
  
https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/d-i/debian-installer-utils.git/commit/?id=ad2213befaa67a95943b3f13b50fd73b6dc849bb

for debian-installer-utils might be a good idea. I've added that to my
jessie pu todo list.

Carl: This should be fixed with the next d-i alpha/beta.

Mraw,
KiBi.


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Bug#806849: Bug#806164: installation-reports: jessie install on dell xps 13 9350 (grub-installer issues)

[Carl Myers]

On Thu, Dec 03, 2015 at 01:00:32AM +0100, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> 
> sid/stretch should be behaving better since 1.122 was supposed to
> introduce support for NVMe devices, but I botched it. 1.128 will
> hopefully fix this, but confirmations are welcome:
>   
> https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/d-i/grub-installer.git/commit/?id=fa658f8a8fbd9179a5ae3abae14b6c906f6ee620
> 
> Backports of the relevant commits for grub-installer, along with:
>   
> https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/d-i/debian-installer-utils.git/commit/?id=ad2213befaa67a95943b3f13b50fd73b6dc849bb
> 
> for debian-installer-utils might be a good idea. I've added that to my
> jessie pu todo list.
> 
> Carl: This should be fixed with the next d-i alpha/beta.
This is great - thanks for this - I'll try these changes out tonight and let you
know!

-Carl
> 
> Mraw,
> KiBi.



-- 
Carl Myers 
PGP Key ID 3537595B
PGP Key fingerprint 9365 0FAF 721B 992A 0A20  1E0D C795 2955 3537 595B



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Bug#806164: installation-reports: jessie install on dell xps 13 9350 (grub-installer issues)

[Julien Cristau]

Control: reassign -1 grub-installer 1.117
Control: severity -1 important
Control: retitle -1 grub-installer: too much hardcoding of device names, fails 
with /dev/nvme*

On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 00:06:57 +0100, Julien Cristau wrote:

> Installation went fine (well, had to stay close to the screen because
> the text was quite small on this high-dpi display) until the
> grub-installer step.  Which failed horribly, I think because the
> /dev/nvme0n1 device name for the drive isn't expected.  See attached
> excerpt from syslog (contains a few invocations of grub-installer while
> I was trying to understand what was going on; the last one has
> DEBCONF_DEBUG and set -x enabled.
> 
Reassigning.

Cheers,
Julien


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Bug#806164: installation-reports: jessie install on dell xps 13 9350 (grub-installer issues)

[Julien Cristau]

Package: installation-reports

Boot method: USB
Image version: 
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/current/amd64/iso-cd/firmware-8.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso
Date: November 24, 2015

Machine: Dell XPS 13 9350
Partitions: fdisk -l

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 477 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 121A6F68-CA63-4FB1-98BD-61F0971A674C

Device StartEnd   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1  20481026047   1024000   500M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2   10260481288191262144   128M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p3   1288192  502419455 501131264   239G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p4 977592320  979337215   1744896   852M Windows recovery environmen
/dev/nvme0n1p5 979337216 1000214527  2087731210G Windows recovery environmen
/dev/nvme0n1p6 502419456  961990655 459571200 219.1G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p7 961990656  977592319  15601664   7.5G Linux swap

Partition table entries are not in disk order.


Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it

Initial boot:   [O]
Detect network card:[O] (had to use an usb wlan thing, the shipped one 
isn't supported until linux 4.4)
Configure network:  [O]
Detect CD:  [O]
Load installer modules: [O]
Clock/timezone setup:   [O]
User/password setup:[O]
Detect hard drives: [E] 
Partition hard drives:  [O]
Install base system:[O]
Install tasks:  [O]
Install boot loader:[E]
Overall install:[O]

Comments/Problems:

Initially, the disk was setup as "RAID" in the BIOS, and I couldn't get
linux to recognize it.  Googling suggested disabling that mode and using
"AHCI" instead.  That broke Windows, so I had to reinstall, but it
allowed d-i to see the disk.

Installation went fine (well, had to stay close to the screen because
the text was quite small on this high-dpi display) until the
grub-installer step.  Which failed horribly, I think because the
/dev/nvme0n1 device name for the drive isn't expected.  See attached
excerpt from syslog (contains a few invocations of grub-installer while
I was trying to understand what was going on; the last one has
DEBCONF_DEBUG and set -x enabled.

After reboot I'm on the fbdev X driver (on simplefb) and llvmpipe, and
gnome-shell works surprisingly well (if it wasn't for xrandr not listing
outputs I might not have noticed).

Cheers,
Julien
-- 

==
Installer lsb-release:
==
DISTRIB_ID=Debian
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Debian GNU/Linux installer"
DISTRIB_RELEASE="8 (jessie) - installer build 20150422+deb8u2"
X_INSTALLATION_MEDIUM=cdrom

==
Installer hardware-summary:
==
uname -a: Linux  3.16.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3 
(2015-08-04) x86_64 GNU/Linux
lspci -knn: 00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:1904] 
(rev 08)
lspci -knn: Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0704]
lspci -knn: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Device 
[8086:1916] (rev 07)
lspci -knn: Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0704]
lspci -knn: 00:04.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation 
Device [8086:1903] (rev 08)
lspci -knn: Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0704]
lspci -knn: 00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d2f] 
(rev 21)
lspci -knn: Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0704]
lspci -knn: Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
lspci -knn: 00:14.2 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation 
Device [8086:9d31] (rev 21)
lspci -knn: Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0704]
lspci -knn: 00:15.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation 
Device [8086:9d60] (rev 21)
lspci -knn: Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0704]
lspci -knn: 00:15.1 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation 
Device [8086:9d61] (rev 21)
lspci -knn: Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0704]
lspci -knn: 00:16.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation Device 
[8086:9d3a] (rev 21)
lspci -knn: Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0704]
lspci -knn: 00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d10] 
(rev f1)
lspci -knn: Kernel driver in use: pcieport
lspci -knn: 00:1c.4 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d14] 
(rev f1)
lspci -knn: Kernel driver in use: pcieport
lspci -knn: 00:1c.5 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d15] 
(rev f1)
lspci -knn: Kernel driver in use: pcieport
lspci -knn: 00:1d.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d18] 
(rev f1)
lspci -knn: Kernel driver in use: pcieport
lspci -knn: 00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d48] 
(rev 21)
lspci -knn: