minix not shutting down after installation

[Idowu Daramola]

Good day folks,

I have an issue with shutting down minix after installing it on the
hard disk. I typed the 'shutdown' command, but MINIX will not shutdown
the system even after waiting for about 50 mins!. I don't know what
the problem can be. I am new to MINIX.

To make things worse, the pre-existing OS (Windows) on my machine is
now failing to load due to start-up errors.

I hope somebody will be able to help me.

Thanks very much

[pikpik]

Hi Idowu,

On Saturday, November 17, 2012 5:11:27 AM UTC-5, Idowu Daramola wrote:

Good day folks,

I have an issue with shutting down minix after installing it on the
hard disk. I typed the 'shutdown' command, but MINIX will not shutdown
the system even after waiting for about 50 mins!. I don't know what
the problem can be. I am new to MINIX.

I've had that happen too. I'm not sure if it's a bug that hasn't been resolved or a transient issue. Does it happen every time? If it's possible, a screenshot or description of the last visible console messages would help.

 

To make things worse, the pre-existing OS (Windows) on my machine is
now failing to load due to start-up errors.

If you could provide some more information, that would help us understand the situation:

• Details about the situation: see section 3 of http://wiki.minix3.org/en/GettingHelp

• Screenshots of the Windows problem might also help

I hope this helps,
pikpik

[Antoine LECA]

Idowu Daramola wrote:
> To make things worse, the pre-existing OS (Windows) on my machine is
> now failing to load due to start-up errors.

If you did change from ACPI to IDE/ATA mode in the BIOS, this is the
reason: Windows' hard disk driver is tied to that mode, and cannot start
in the other mode. Change it back to start Windows.

Assuming this is not the case:
Please describe what you did to the hard disk organization (partitions,
booting order, etc.) when you installed Minix.

Also, with Windows you might try to use the "repair" features of the
operating system, they are useful when something is wrong at booting.
However be sure to have a "standard" configuration of Windows (C: disk,
one disk, eveything at the standard place etc.) and do not run the
"reinstall" feature which would wipe your all data.


Antoine

[ta mull]

Hi everybody

I am also a newcomer to Minix and I am encountering the same problem.

I am using Virtualbox and following the instructions in the Wiki (http://wiki.minix3.org/UsersGuide/RunningOnVirtualBox?action=show&redirect=UsersGuide%2FRunningMinixOnVirtualBox).
Installation is running smoothly, to the best of my knowledge, no errors are returned.
After submitting the shutdown command, the VM seems to freeze.

If I use poweroff instead of shutdown, the VM powers down, but previous changes to the disk (passwd, keyboard type) are not persisted.

If I am using a readily downloaded vdi image, I can use the shutdown command and I can make changes to disk.
To the best of my knowledge, settings for both the installed VM and the downloaded vdi image are identical.

Does anybody have an idea what might be wrong?

Best regards, tamull

[Antoine LECA]

ta mull wrote:
> I am also a newcomer to Minix and I am encountering the same problem.
>
> I am using Virtualbox and following the instructions in the Wiki

[ http://wiki.minix3.org/UsersGuide/RunningOnVirtualBox ]

> Installation is running smoothly, to the best of my knowledge, no errors
> are returned.
> After submitting the shutdown command, the VM seems to freeze.

Please explicit the exact versions of MINIX and VirtualBox you are
running (this remark is valid for any bug report you are making.)

Also in this case, I guess you should try the latest version, perhaps
the problem you are facing is already solved in that version.

> If I use poweroff instead of shutdown, the VM powers down, but previous
> changes to the disk (passwd, keyboard type) are not persisted.

poweroff(8) is a shell script which invokes shutdown(8)...

On the other hand, pressing the virtual "power button" is a much more
drastic way to kill the VM (and yes that way could loose things.)

> If I am using a readily downloaded vdi image, I can use the shutdown
> command and I can make changes to disk.

Again, please describe a bit more what you mean with "a readily
downloaded vdi image."

> To the best of my knowledge, settings for both the installed VM and the
> downloaded vdi image are identical.

The mere fact that the experiences are not the same, is a good hint that
perhaps something is different at some place; as you know, computers are
quite a bit more deterministic than humans.

Furthermore, if I understood your exposition correctly, in the first
case you are running in "setup mode", i.e. booting from the CD and
running MINIX from the ramdisk, while in the 2nd case you are running in
"normal mode", i.e. booting directly from the system installed on the
root partition of MINIX; these are not "identical settings" to me.


Last but not least, I understand you have a working system with your
"vdi image" (whatever that might mean); so what are you asking for?


Antoine

[ta mull]

Hi Antoine

Thanks for your reply.

With readily usable image I refer to a vdi image I downloaded and started in Virtualbox.
Source is http://virtualboxes.org/images/minix/ - I used the latest version, 3.2.1

For the installation I run, I downloaded version 3.2.1 from http://www.minix3.org/download/index.html.

My Virtualbox is version 4.3.6 r91406.

To be sure about the different behaviour of shutdown and poweroff, I just double checked and the behaviour is still the same: I call shutdown and the "self installed" machine freezes after "Minix will now be shut down" console output, I call poweroff, the machine is powered down.

As my aim is to learn about the system, I am asking to get some hints about where to look for the error or how to proceed.
As this thread was already existing, I guess I am not the only one encountering this problem.

Thanks and best regards,     tamull

[Antoine LECA]

ta mull wrote:
> For the installation I run, I downloaded version 3.2.1 from
> http://www.minix3.org/download/index.html.

As I said, you perhaps could try the latest "dev snapshots", for example
minix3_2_1_ide_20131118_f24634c.iso.bz2 to see if it helps.

I do not remember all the details, but I am pretty sure the area of
powering down the system was revised, several times, including after
official 3.2.1 release. And if anything is to change in this area, it
will change away from the current state of things.

> To be sure about the different behaviour of shutdown and poweroff, I just
> double checked and the behaviour is still the same: I call shutdown and the
> "self installed" machine freezes after "Minix will now be shut down"
> console output,

As the online help and the man page explains, raw (no parameters)
shutdown(8) performs the "HALT" action (-h), which in 3.2.1 stops the
operating system, prints a message, and freezes (halts) the machine.
Pretty much what you described.

It is true that before 3.2.x, the course of action was a bit different,
since control was driven back to the 'boot monitor'; this is no longer
possible since the current boot manager is not any more available after
the system is boot strapped (same behaviour as with any other systems
these days.)

> I call poweroff, the machine is powered down.

Since poweroff(8) calls shutdown(8) with the -p (POWEROFF) argument, it
also appears to behaves as expected to me.

I should add that I believe this (powering down) is the area which had
the major changes since 3.2.1; if plain 3.2.1 works OK for you for
`shutdown -p`, I'll consider it a good thing rather than a problem.

> As my aim is to learn about the system, I am asking to get some hints about
> where to look for the error or how to proceed.

Can you please explain what you are considering an *error*?
Documentation? Or lack of it? Mismatching documentation? Missing
directions on the wiki page?

> As this thread was already existing, I guess I am not the only one
> encountering this problem.

As I said, this area experimented changes; furthermore, you took a
thread from 2012, and one might guess that "the problem" might have been
resolved since then; particularly since in that case, the poster to
which you responded, "hijacked" in November a thread from March (subject
was "NetBSD Boot Monitor", basically about AHCI), and he was asked in
November to provide details, which he did not; as a result, nobody can
know if it still was a problem after pikpik's answer on November 18th, 2012.


Antoine

[JD Begin]

My two cents, I use Virtualbox 4.2.14 and I experience the same issue. poweroff works, shutdown freezes after "System will now be shutdown". I've attached my vbox definition if you're interested. 

This Minix was downloaded from the web site (the 3.2.1 statble release). I also have a much more recent Minix, compiled from source that tracked current as of November 1st and experienced the same problem. I haven't played with it in a while so I can't be certain the problem hasn't been fixed since.

JD

[D.C. van Moolenbroek]

Hello,

On Tuesday, January 7, 2014 3:50:44 PM UTC+1, JD Begin wrote:

My two cents, I use Virtualbox 4.2.14 and I experience the same issue. poweroff works, shutdown freezes after "System will now be shutdown".

As Antoine already suggested, this is in fact the intended behavior.

Regards,
David

[Jan Wieck]

Both behaviors are intended. The question is are they using the "-h" or
the "-p" option of shutdown? The default (if none given) is "-h".


Jan

--
Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither
liberty nor security. -- Benjamin Franklin

[ta mull]

Hi Antoine

Thanks for your reply, the explanation and now as I understand that I did not express clearly what my issue is, your patience.

As stated in my first post, changes to the system (as set password, keyboard type changes, etc) are not persisted on disk.
There's the real problem.

Best regards,      tamull

[ta mull]

PS From the explanations, I understand now, this has most likely nothing to do with the shutdown/poweroff behaviour. I will looking further.

[dr12]

> Both behaviors are intended. The question is are they using the "-h" or
> the "-p" option of shutdown? The default (if none given) is "-h".

I had the same problem with "shutdown" both in VirtualBox and in VMWare Player.

"shutdown -p" works perfectly!

Thanks, JanW... !