Help regarding installing CUBES

[Martin Bak]

I have a Dell XPS 9350 i7 U6500 laptop... I have bought a Sandisk Extreme SDHC UHS-II PRO 32GB SD card (300MB/sec) and i have used Rufus to write the CUBES OS ISO file to the SD card (in DD mode)...

When i boot CUBES OS - the menu shows...but after i choose install/test and install...it loads the first 3 lines - all with an added status of "OK"... but afterwards... the screen is just black and stays black...and nothing happens...

So - im stucked :-( and don't know how to make it work?

I really hope some of you guys can help me to solve this issue :-)

Best regards,
Martin

[ski...@wgu.edu]

I'd encourage you to try checking different boot options in the BIOS. EFI, legacy, whatever. Try all of them. I'm unfamiliar with that hardware, but I've had success with tinkering with those sort of settings for getting Qubes installer media to boot. Also, I've never tried to boot Qubes installer from an SD card, so maybe try a USB drive too.

[Martin Bak]

Here is what i have done:

1. Downloadet and verified Cubes ISO
2. From Windows 10, used Rufus (in DD mode) and wrote ISO to a Sandisk Extreme Pro 32 GB SD card
3. Im using a Dell XPS 9350 U6500 i7 laptop, in BIOS i have disabled "Secure boot", which let me select legacy mode, so i can boot from the SD card
4. Booting works fine - Qubes menu shows up...
5. It does not matter what i select (install/test and install) the result is the same...
6. After i select one of them...it start checking some different stuff (Loading xem.gz = OK, loading vmlinuz = OK, Loading initrd.img OK)
7. I used my iphone to record the following text because it only shows up for a sec...

"9.179648 - dracut-pre-trigger[522]: cat: /tmp/dd_disk: No such file or directory"

after the error message above the screen stays black/blank and nothing happens.

[Reg Tiangha]

A long shot, but try to get into the advanced options of the bootloader
of the installer to edit the kernel options and add nomodeset and see if
that helps.

[ski...@wgu.edu]

I think that I had a similar issue with Qubes installing on an iMac. If memory serves me correctly, it was the same error message with dracut. I had to turn to rEFIt ( http://refit.sourceforge.net/ ) to get it to work. You're working on different hardware that might be more forgiving of that. In fact, the things you've listed, aside from trying a USB drive instead, are the things that I'd do.

Secondly, it sounds like that the installer media isn't loading up the ramdisk that it will use to make itself work right. Maybe something as simple as the little plastic latch on the SD card that puts it into read only mode?

Third, Qubes. It's spelled Qubes. Thought I'd correct that misspelling, before the more ... passionate Qubes users have the opportunity to do so.

[Martin Bak]

Can you please elaborate exactly how to do this and what text/code to add?

[Martin Bak]

I don't quite get it - so now i should create a USB with rEFIt and then boot from that and the boot Qubes from inside that - or what?

[Reg Tiangha]

I can't remember off the top of my head, but when the bootloader to the
installer pops up, you either hit e to edit it or there's a menu option
at the bottom of the screen.

But reading through your thread, it probably won't work; it's mostly
meant for video card issues, especially with Intel cards. Yours sounds
like an EFI issue, which nomodeset wouldn't do anything to fix. I've
seen others report the same sorts of issues, and I haven't seen a fix
for it yet, outside of an updated installer and/or kernel being included
in a new iso.

[Martin Bak]

On Tuesday, May 23, 2017 at 5:30:08 PM UTC+2, ski...@wgu.edu wrote:

I simply can't install "rEFIt" on an USB by using Rufus - it simply denies to write the file (as ISO, no matter if i remane the "rEFIt-0.14.cdr" file to "rEFIt-0.14.iso")... look here, they have the exact same issue on a windows pc... https://superuser.com/questions/140976/how-to-burn-refit-cdr-or-dmg-in-ubuntu-or-windows

[cooloutac]

do you have a legacy boot option in your bios instead of uefi? also I use rawrite32 program to burn it in windows. https://www.netbsd.org/~martin/rawrite32/

[Martin Bak]

Yes - as described i my second post - i use Legacy mode - and actually im only able to use Legacy mode (By disabling "Secure boot").

Thanks! Im will test the rawwrite out now! :-) Could you tell me how me how rEFit works regarding Qubes? Do i use it to boot Qubes first time to install it - or how does the concept works?

[Martin Bak]

I just tried the rawwrite... but is only writes 20 MB of data and afterwards its not able to read the USB in Windows...Does it sound right?

[Martin Bak]

UPDATE!

1. I have tried added "nomodeset" - which didn't change anything
2. I simply can't burn/copy/extrat the rEFIt file in Windows to an USB drive

3. But may by this helps a bit! I looked into my BIOS and realized that i CAN boot the SD card in regular mode (i guess its called UEFI mode vs Legacy).
And when i boot like this i get better error messages! Like:

1. EFI_MEMMAP is not enabled
2. ESRT header is not in memory map
3. dracut-pre-trigger[404] cat: /tmp/dd_disk: No such file or directory

First time i ran it this way - its afterwards showed the message below:

Generating "run/initramfs/rdsosreport.txt"

I tried to open the file - but without luck... i tried nano, vim ect...
but they don't seem to be available? How can i open a text file in the Qubes prompt?

I don't know why the "generating message"...does not show up again?

[Stephen Kilpatrick]

Does trying to do the Qubes installer from a USB drive give you any differences than a SD card? Have you looked around the user group to see if anyone else has had luck with SD booting?

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ski...@mywgu.edu

[Martin Bak]

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> Stephen Kilpatrick
> Student ID: 000563293
> BS IT Security Start Date: 11/01/2016
> My Mentor: Unassigned
> Cell: 740-586-5919 EST
> ski...@mywgu.edu

I used 4 entire days just to get Qubes to work...OMG! Why sooo diffecult :-(

I bought 2 new 64 GB Sandisk 3.0 USB and finally completed the installation.
I have checked the HASH/Verified the ISO in Windows - BUT after i used Rufus
to copy it to the USB and i boot on it and start the installation - inside Qubes there is a feature to verify the media...and it says: This media is not good to install from!???

I completed the installation - and thus it still shows some different warnings when it boots - it starts up Qubes and im able to login.

But is it not secure to use now? Is the ISO really modified or what?

Another thing - how do i activate WIFI and connect? I like to you the integrate WIFI in my pc...When i open the Newtwork settings - every thing is disabled...

[cooloutac]

no that doesn't sound right.

[cooloutac]

would be better peace of mind if the media check passed. But warnings are you seeing when booting the qubes install?

Marek says that when you mount a usb on windows 10 it will create some files on it that qubes does not recognize and consider it unrealiable.

But as I've said I also don't use rufus I use rawrite32.exe. Test media always passes for me. Try after finishing the burn on windows to quickly remove the usb and then reboot machine. then put the usb back in and see if theres any diff.