openSuse 15.1 port to openSuse 15.3

[Mark Harrop]

Hello All,

I inherited a project from a fellow worker who retired and find myself stumped.

I have a working 15.1 project which uses kiwi to build the first boot initrd to install the specialized 15.1 openSuse OS. My task is to update to 15.3 openSuse. I have downloaded the 15.3 dvd image and collected the additional packages needed by the config.xml into a repository.

Using the original 15.1 config.xml, I was able to get my kiwi command to build with minor (in my mind) changes where most were due to package name changes.

The biggest change was to the type parameters in the preferences:

     <preferences>
-        <type image="oem" installiso="true" filesystem="ext4" bootkernel="custom" bootprofile="default" boot="oemboot/suse-leap15.0" bootloader="grub2" kernelcmdline="splash"/>
-        <!--type image="pxe" filesystem="ext4" bootkernel="custom" bootprofile="default" boot="oemboot/suse-leap15.0" kernelcmdline="splash"/-->
-        <version>151.01.001</version>
+        <type image="oem" initrd_system="kiwi" installiso="true" filesystem="ext4" bootkernel="custom" bootprofile="default" boot="oemboot/suse-tumbleweed" bootloader="grub2" kernelcmdline="splash"/>
+        <!--type image="pxe" filesystem="ext4" bootkernel="custom" bootprofile="default" boot="oemboot/suse-tumbleweed" kernelcmdline="splash"/-->
+        <version>153.01.001</version>

I found the oemboot/suse-leap15.3 unavailable in 15.3 /usr/share/kiwi/custom_boot/oemboot/ but found oemboot/suse-tumbleweed (thank you Marcus) which was identical (except for the name) to the leap15.0.

I added initrd_system="kiwi" due to this warning:

[ ERROR   ]: 21:35:06 | KiwiRuntimeError:
Missing initrd_system selection for boot attribute
The selected boot="'oemboot/suse-tumbleweed'" boot description indicates
the custom kiwi initrd system should be used instead
of dracut. If this is correct please explicitly request
the kiwi initrd system as follows:
<type initrd_system="kiwi"/>
If this is not want you want and dracut should be used
as initrd system, please delete the boot attribute
as it is obsolete in this case.

There is also the bootsplash/bootloader theme change which I believe is due to a problem with the plymouth branding rpm in 15.3
-        <bootsplash-theme>openSUSE</bootsplash-theme>
-        <bootloader-theme>openSUSE</bootloader-theme>
+        <bootsplash-theme>text</bootsplash-theme>
+        <bootloader-theme>text</bootloader-theme>

I am issuing the following kiwi command to create my image:

kiwi-ng --type=oem system build --description=<kiwi_config_dir> --target-dir=<kiwi_out_dir> --clear-cache.

Everything appears to be building correctly but when I try to install the initial install script (initrd/etc/init.d/rcS) fails to detected the existence of hard drives and exits. At this time the console is unresponsive to key press and is hung which which prevents any further debug.

After my long description of my problem, am I missing something?

Was there a change in 15.3 the I need to take into account?

Any suggestions on how to debug this problem?

Thank you so much.

Mark