Calamares installer question

Support Virtualization
1

Not sure I can ask a question here but here goes.
On my Calamares install it completes to the point of rebooting.
After I reboot and it starts the kernel load and then I get returned to the cli with the error
ERROR ’ ’ device did not show up after 30 seconds …

[root tip] [How To] Troubleshoot Calamares installer errors
2

I would start with verifying the ISO checksum and signature to ensure it is complete.

I am a bit baffled with

What do you mean by that?

3

I don’t know how to answer that question.
All I have is the error I show on the screen. It doesn’t make it to the login screen.
It gets past grub and then shows the kernel booting but then crashes.
I am doing this in a virtualbox if that makes a difference.

4

Which ISO are you using?

Xfce ISO edition and VirtualBox is not always good friends.

5

I guess I should tell you I am building the iso with Archiso

6

I have very limited knowledge of archiso and calamares.

I am thinking that your post install processing scripts need to be checked.

You will have to provide a link to your sources - if you hope someone can provide a hint or perhaps point directly to the problem.

8

I think my iso is ok . It is the calamares config files I am not getting correct I believe.
My source is here:

I am actively working on this so I am uploading changes every so often

1 Like
9

Hi @MAYBL8 ,
I wonder whether you could read this post, maybe is the solution for your problem.
‘Cannot boot iso image built with buildiso’

Hope it help, regards

1 Like
10

I’m going back through all of my Calamares settings conf and modules to see if i messed something up there

11

I am guessing that your post install configuration is writing the correct root device to the boot loader configuration as indicated by

root=UUID=some-long-uuid

or if you are using a label

root=LABEL=system
12

Yeah I am starting the process over from the beginning to see if I have missed something. I wish that error would tell me exactly what I have wrong and the steps to correct it. Like this is missing in this exact file.

13

Think… :thinking: where would the system need a specified device?

The kernel cmdline must identify the device to mount because otherwise it would not be able to mount the root file system.

Depending on your boot loader

  • /etc/default/grub
  • /efi/loader/loader.conf → /efi/loader/entries/<entry>.conf
  • /etc/kernel/cmdline
1 Like
14

I will check these files.
I don’t think the problem is with calamares.
I’ve pretty much stripped it down and still getting the same error.

15

You can check before you reboot the system.

Simply remount the resulting file system - then inspect the files - I am sure you will find where the root partition reference is missing - then work your way backwards.

16

I think this issue is too much for me.
No matter what i try I am not getting no where. Everything looks ok to me and it just doesn’t work. I have tried to manually make the partitions and tried to just use EFI only. Everything I try just ends up in the same place.
I wish I knew more about what could be wrong. I tried to take your advice but I don’t know how to do it.
So I know you would say if you don’t know how then maybe you shouldn’t be doing it. I just don’t think it should be this difficult.
Well I am about to give up.
Thanks for trying to help. I have read all kinds of example and files but I just don’t get it. If I do figure it out I will post it here if the issue is still open.

Edit 1:
So I took kde-meta out the list of packages for archiso to install.
After the iso booted I used archinstall to install kde-meta and install the iso.
It rebooted into the installed system just fine.
So something with using calamares to install doesn’t work but archinstall does work. I don’t know if that is a hint to me issue or not. It appears if calamares is not making the partitions correctly i’m guessing.
Is there a way to use calamares from the cli?

17

I would see it as a hint.

Somewhere in your Calamares modules, something has gone haywire, I would start looking at

  • partitioning
  • bootloader
  • postcfg
18

I am introducing modules one at a time for testing this.
So I only have unpackfs being used right now. Calamares defaults are being used for the rest of the install.
On my next run I am going to run the calamares -D6 debug option.
Is there a way to post a large file here so I can get some help analyzing the issue?

Edit 1:
I see this when building the iso.
Does anything here look wrong or an issue that could be causing the problem?

[mkarchiso] INFO: Preparing kernel and initramfs for the ISO 9660 file system...
[mkarchiso] INFO: Done!
[mkarchiso] INFO: Setting up SYSLINUX for BIOS booting...
[mkarchiso] INFO: Done! SYSLINUX set up for BIOS booting successfully.
[mkarchiso] INFO: Setting up systemd-boot for UEFI booting...
[mkarchiso] INFO: Creating FAT image of size: 255 MiB...
mkfs.fat 4.2 (2021-01-31)
[mkarchiso] INFO: Preparing kernel and initramfs for the FAT file system...
[mkarchiso] INFO: Done!
[mkarchiso] INFO: Done! systemd-boot set up for UEFI booting successfully.
[mkarchiso] INFO: Setting up GRUB for UEFI booting...
[mkarchiso] INFO: Creating FAT image of size: 269 MiB...
mkfs.fat 4.2 (2021-01-31)
[mkarchiso] INFO: Done! GRUB set up for UEFI booting successfully.
[mkarchiso] INFO: Cleaning up in pacstrap location...
[mkarchiso] INFO: Done!
[mkarchiso] INFO: Creating SquashFS image, this may take some time...
Parallel mksquashfs: Using 8 processors
Creating 4.0 filesystem on /home/demo/CARLI/carli-5/work/iso/arch/x86_64/airootfs.sfs, block size 1048576.
[======================================================================================================================================\ ] 190803/190961  99%
Unrecognised xattr prefix system.posix_acl_default
Unrecognised xattr prefix system.posix_acl_access
Unrecognised xattr prefix system.posix_acl_default
[=======================================================================================================================================\] 190961/190961 100%

Exportable Squashfs 4.0 filesystem, xz compressed, data block size 1048576
	compressed data, compressed metadata, compressed fragments,
	compressed xattrs, compressed ids
	duplicates are removed
Filesystem size 1758017.19 Kbytes (1716.81 Mbytes)
	37.33% of uncompressed filesystem size (4708880.83 Kbytes)
Inode table size 1770948 bytes (1729.44 Kbytes)
	21.57% of uncompressed inode table size (8210052 bytes)
Directory table size 2315386 bytes (2261.12 Kbytes)
	34.17% of uncompressed directory table size (6776339 bytes)
Xattr table size 118 bytes (0.12 Kbytes)
	49.17% of uncompressed xattr table size (240 bytes)
Number of duplicate files found 14439
Number of inodes 235729
Number of files 179947
Number of fragments 2796
Number of symbolic links 42824
Number of device nodes 0
Number of fifo nodes 0
Number of socket nodes 0
Number of directories 12958
Number of hard-links 2445
Number of ids (unique uids + gids) 24
Number of uids 12
	root (0)
	_talkd (963)
	partimag (110)
	demo (1000)
	colord (968)
	systemd-timesync (973)
	rpcuser (34)
	nm-openconnect (961)
	rpc (32)
	openvpn (959)
	unknown (979)
	systemd-resolve (974)
Number of gids 23
	root (0)
	tss (972)
	named (40)
	daemon (2)
	partimag (110)
	polkitd (102)
	demo (1000)
	ftp (11)
	users (985)
	tty (5)
	dbus (81)
	wheel (998)
	games (50)
	colord (968)
	systemd-timesync (973)
	rpcuser (34)
	nm-openconnect (961)
	rpc (32)
	openvpn (959)
	systemd-journal (979)
	systemd-resolve (974)
	systemd-network (977)
	lp (984)
[mkarchiso] INFO: Creating checksum file for self-test...
[mkarchiso] INFO: Done!
[mkarchiso] INFO: Creating ISO image...
xorriso 1.5.8 : RockRidge filesystem manipulator, libburnia project.

xorriso : NOTE : Environment variable SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH encountered with value 1777723109
Drive current: -outdev 'stdio:/home/demo/CARLI/carli-5/out/MY LAST ARCH-2026.05.02-x86_64.iso'
Media current: stdio file, overwriteable
Media status : is blank
Media summary: 0 sessions, 0 data blocks, 0 data, 76.9g free
xorriso : WARNING : -volid text problematic as automatic mount point name
xorriso : WARNING : -volid text is too long for Joliet (19 > 16)
xorriso : WARNING : -volid text does not comply to ISO 9660 / ECMA 119 rules
Added to ISO image: directory '/'='/home/demo/CARLI/carli-5/work/iso'
xorriso : UPDATE :     108 files added in 1 seconds
xorriso : UPDATE :     108 files added in 1 seconds
xorriso : NOTE : Copying to System Area: 432 bytes from file '/home/demo/CARLI/carli-5/work/iso/boot/syslinux/isohdpfx.bin'
libisofs: NOTE : Automatically adjusted MBR geometry to 1022/124/32
libisofs: NOTE : Aligned image size to cylinder size by 749 blocks

Edit 2:
Here is the log:
https://paste.c-net.org/AfricaExplains