Q4OS Forum

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

not booting [SOLVED]

Hello

I installed Q4OS to hdd after partitioning as below:

1st sys reserved
2 c drive - windows
3 - extended ntfs partition - has data
4 created 20 gig root partition under 3
5 created 2 gig swap under 3
6 30 gig fat 32 - reserve empty partition

added the uefi boot to no. 6 fat32 partition

os installed beautifully
upon restarting get black screen -  says no boot device

i boot from usb in puppy and run grub4dos on the 1st sys reserved partition to write mbr
now i can boot in puppy and windows but still no joy for Q4OS

the error message seen now is as below:

Booting Debian GNU/Linux 9 (strech) (sda6)

setting root to (hd0,5)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 ro
Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format
press any key to continue

the current menu.lst in 1st partition is as below:

# menu.lst produced by grub4dosconfig-v1.9.3
color white/blue black/cyan white/black cyan/black
#splashimage=/splash.xpm
timeout 10
default 0

# Frugal installed Puppy

title Puppy xenialpup64 7.5 (sdb1)
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /puppy_xenialpup64_7.5.sfs
  kernel /vmlinuz    pmedia=usbflash pfix=copy
  initrd /initrd.gz

# Full installed Linux

title Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) (sda6)
  uuid 5da04ded-295d-4a17-a721-faace47702f7
  kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 ro
  initrd /initrd.img

title Find Grub2\nBoot up grub2 if installed
  errorcheck off
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img
  kernel /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /boot/grub/core.img
  kernel /boot/grub/core.img
  errorcheck on

# Windows
# this entry searches Windows on the HDD and boot it up
title Windows\nBoot up Windows if installed
  errorcheck off
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd  /bootmgr
  chainloader /bootmgr
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd  /ntldr
  chainloader /ntldr
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd   /io.sys
  chainloader /io.sys
  errorcheck on

# Advanced Menu
title Advanced menu
  configfile /menu-advanced.lst
  commandline

please help!
i want to start using Q4OS
thanks

Last edited by sickpig (2019-07-18 05:59)

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

I'm not too sure what you mean by creating partition under 3 (data partition?) as you should create separate partitions for this, I have an installation guide here that might help you.

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

oh thanks for reply
i have been refreshing the page and refreshing to see if there was one
by 3 i mean partition no. 3 an extended one - i had labeled it as data. I created 2 logical partitions under it root and swap
it had to be an extended one because of the limitation of 4 partitions, i could not add any further ones
the installation did go through
but now upon booting i land at grub screen
i tried to find vmlinuz at grub prompt to no avail
but i can see the linux are installed in the root partition when i mount it from puppy to check. the vmlinuz-4.9.0-8-amd64 is under boot in the correct root partition

and yes i had followed that guide to the t

just saw the atom feed link at the bottom gonna subscribe to that - better than coming back to the page and manually refreshing

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

but now upon booting i land at grub screen

Are you sure? or do you mean you have a grub prompt? or grub-rescue prompt?

i tried to find vmlinuz at grub prompt to no avail

Not usually needed unless you are doing something weird with your grub installation

but i can see the linux are installed in the root partition when i mount it from puppy to check. the vmlinuz-4.9.0-8-amd64 is under boot in the correct root partition

That is a good sign

and yes i had followed that guide to the t

Thank you

My first thing to check would be where did you install grub? if you installed it to the partition (i.e. /dev/sda6) it would not be found, to get grub to display at boot you should install it to the MBR of the HDD (i.e. /dev/sda without a number) this should then be able to find and boot all OS's on your system including Windows.

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

seemed like grub but then i would not know grub from grub rescue. this one didnt have any rescue in it for sure
anyway that is moot now as i figured its best to try to install via cd
downloaded the 64bit cd image from the official link
observation - the cd installer does not force uefi boot as the live usb does i believe. i tried to uncheck uefi option in live cd it did not let me do that
anyhoo we are in cd installation now
assigned the already created 20 gig ext 4 as root 2gig swap
ensured the others are do not touch except the 30 gig fat32 one. figured it might be needed to install grub maybe? anyway i mounted it as dos
the cd installer gave some error about it possibly might overwrite exisitng operating systems. i elected to proceed anyway, by this point i just it installed right
the installation died at the base operating system installation stage
thrice
4th time lucky
os installed
but now at the boot it does not give any time out to select windows. just straight away boots to q4os. how and where do i change the timeout?
next, finally logged in the q4os but guess what?!? its 32 bit
the official 64bit cd install link on q4 website is for 32bit cd!!!
now downloading the link which says 64bit. it is slightly more in mb size so i figure  this must be 64 bit right?
we will find out soon enough

the  machines seem to be wining this one

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

The Live-Cd does not force UEFI it will only use it if the system is configured for it, I use the same image on USB stick for both UEFI and Legacy systems and it gets selected correctly for each system.
I prefer to use the Live-Cd as it does give a couple of options that are not so easy to implement with the installation only image, but it's all a matter of preference really so not important.
Hopefully this latest install will go smoothly for you.

R.e. 32bit download from 64bit link:
  I just checked the download links here and they seem to point to the correct versions, maybe you clicked the wrong one??

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

Hey Dai seems like we have  started to win, the tables have turned
the last install finally showed me options to select q4 or win
u right the links are correct i assumed that i had wrongly installed 32 bit one because the htop shows only 2.7G RAM?
i then did uname something in console to check and it confirms its 686. even if its 686 the RAM should still get listed at 3.2 or 3.3gig rightt?
what am i missing?

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,501

Website

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

... the official 64bit cd install link on q4 website is for 32bit cd!!!

Please post the exact name of the downloaded file and the download link you have used. You can easily identify the system architecture from the image file name, for example "q4os-2.7-x64.r1.iso" is obviously 64-bit image, while "q4os-2.7-i686pae.r1.iso" is 32-bit.

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

could you install the package inxi

sudo apt install inxi

and post the output of

inxi -F

Also could you post the output of the command

free

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

System:    Host: q4os-desktop Kernel: 4.9.0-8-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit)
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 3 Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)
Machine:   Device: laptop System: LENOVO product: 62774XQ v: ThinkPad Edge E431
           Mobo: LENOVO model: 62774XQ
           UEFI [Legacy]: LENOVO v: HEET36WW (1.17 ) date: 10/14/2013
Battery    BAT0: charge: 29.9 Wh 99.8% condition: 29.9/56.2 Wh (53%)
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i5-3230M (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
           clock speeds: max: 3200 MHz 1: 1199 MHz 2: 1201 MHz 3: 1200 MHz
           4: 1199 MHz
Graphics:  Card-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller
           Card-2: NVIDIA GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/810M/820M / GT 620M/625M/630M/720M]
           Display Server: X.Org 1.19.2 drivers: modesetting,nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1360x768@60.02hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Mobile
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 13.0.6
Audio:     Card Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.9.0-8-amd64
Network:   Card-1: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230 driver: iwlwifi
           IF: wlp4s0 state: up mac: 00:c2:c6:3e:62:dc
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169
           IF: enp5s0 state: down mac: 28:d2:44:51:d8:e9
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (0.8% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: HGST_HTS725050A7 size: 500.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 20G used: 2.0G (11%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.10GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda7
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0
Info:      Processes: 165 Uptime: 13 min Memory: 456.0/2764.5MB
           Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.5

free
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:        2830840      392968     1441788      128464      996084     2068496
Swap:       2045948           0     2045948

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

@q4os yes the links are correct, i assumed incorrectly that they weren't because a 64 bit Q4OS on my system shows a RAM of just 2.8 gig in htop

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

I certainly would appear that you only have 2.7Gb of RAM, I recall on older systems there used to be shared video memory that was set in the BIOS which often affected free memory but looking at your specs I would doubt that to be the case here but I would check the BIOS settings anyway, you never know...

Are you certain that you have 4Gb RAM installed?

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

yes absolutely certain it has 4 gig
the live cd recognizes 4 gig
puppy linux shows 4 gig
windows shows 3.6 gig, some of it being hardware reserved of course

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

I'm at a loss on this, I can't see how the Live-Cd will see the full 4Gb but installed system can only see 2.7Gb...

You could try the following command to see what information it gives

sudo dmidecode --type memory

It should give you detailed information including size, voltages, clock speed, type and much more.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,501

Website

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

We would need some debug info, please provide journal log. Run in terminal:
$ sudo journalctl | gzip > /tmp/journal.gz
and attach the "/tmp/journal.gz" file here to analyze.

Anyone else noticed this issue ?

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

My machines all display correct RAM, well close to it anyway as there is always a difference between different measuring methods (i.e. Gb's Vs GiB's) but my laptop shows 3.78G in Htop and 3960244 in free and Dell says 4Gb, so close enough.

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

@ Dai

# dmidecode 3.0
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.7 present.

Handle 0x000B, DMI type 16, 23 bytes
Physical Memory Array
        Location: System Board Or Motherboard
        Use: System Memory
        Error Correction Type: None
        Maximum Capacity: 16 GB
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Number Of Devices: 2

Handle 0x000C, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x000B
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Total Width: Unknown
        Data Width: Unknown
        Size: No Module Installed
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: ChannelA-DIMM0
        Bank Locator: BANK 0
        Type: Unknown
        Type Detail: None
        Speed: Unknown
        Manufacturer: Not Specified
        Serial Number: Not Specified
        Asset Tag: None
        Part Number: Not Specified
        Rank: Unknown
        Configured Clock Speed: Unknown

Handle 0x000D, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x000B
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4096 MB
        Form Factor: SODIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: ChannelB-DIMM0
        Bank Locator: BANK 2
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Synchronous
        Speed: 1600 MHz
        Manufacturer: Hynix/Hyundai
        Serial Number: 0083F428
        Asset Tag: None
        Part Number: HMT451S6AFR8A-PB
        Rank: Unknown
        Configured Clock Speed: 1600 MHz

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

I can't see any reason for it not displaying the information correctly...

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

@q4os please find it attached here. thanks.

Last edited by sickpig (2019-01-10 09:45)

---

Attachments:
journal.gz, Size: 24.98 KiB, Downloads: 703

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

I can't see any reason for it not displaying the information correctly...

no worries Dai, appreciate your help nonetheless and thank u for taking time out to reply. I have read most of the posts on the forum and see you have helped so many out there. u a star.

Last edited by sickpig (2019-01-10 09:44)

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,501

Website

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

Well, Linux kernel really sees 2.8GB memory available, you can check that in the journal.log, line 164:

Jan 10 18:47:06 a kernel: Memory: 2799292K/2956252K available (6267K kernel code, 1159K rwdata, 2872K rodata, 1420K init, 688K bss, 156960K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)

Please provide one more journal.log from the live session for comparison.

You can add attachment here by 'post reply -> choose file'

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

hi the live is also showing 2.7 gig
i thought i had seen 4 gig earlier
anyway have attached live log here

Last edited by sickpig (2019-01-10 09:57)

---

Attachments:
journal.gz, Size: 21.25 KiB, Downloads: 717

sickpig

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

i see its showing 156960K reserved
is there a way to free that?
or change to a differenet kernel mayb?

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,501

Website

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

Well, the live-cd and harddrive boot sessions are consistent. Kernel recognizes 2.8GB of memory for both sessions. We guess, the rest 1GB of your memory is reserved for the graphics card, see the line 598:

Jan 10 18:47:07 a kernel: nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: VRAM: 1024 MiB

So, we assume, your system is configured and detected just properly by the kernel. Anyway, you can also attach journal.log from your other systems for us to be able to compare them as well.

-

i see its showing 156960K reserved
is there a way to free that?
or change to a differenet kernel mayb?

No, it's reserved by kernel and can't be freed, but it's 156MB only.

Q4OS uses rock stable stock Debian kernel, we don't recommend to change that, if not really needed, however you could try to install a more recent kernel from backports, see https://www.q4os.org/dqa011.html#system.6

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: not booting [SOLVED]

One thing you could do if you want to try the newer kernel is to run the Centaurus Live-Cd available from the testing image download page that way you could try it without having to install the backported kernel to your system.