Ubuntu 7.10 on encrypted LVM - boots not!
 

Using the fine instructions at http://news.softpedia.com/news/Encry...10-68383.shtml I installed Ubuntu 7.10 from the "alternate" CD onto an encrypted LVM. I used the entire 80 GB SATA drive. The install went fine as far as I could tell. The system will not boot normally - nothing.

If I select Recovery Mode it seems to boot fine up to the point of loading v2.6:HID core driver. If I press <Enter> at that point I am prompted for the pass phrase. It is accepted and I get to a command prompt as root. If I "exit" the GUI will load and I am able to login with the user credentials which I specified during the install. It seems to work after my user account logs in however I have not done much testing.

I have gone through the complete install 3 times - same result. I verified the media - OK. I installed without encryption from the same CD and the install boots just fine. Any ideas/suggestions?

The hardware is:

Dell Dimension 4600
Pentium 4 2.8 GHz
1.5 GB RAM
80 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA drive
Mouse and keyboard are PS2 connected - not USB
Video is Intel onboard graphics

I have installed/run Ubuntu 7.10, 6.x, Kubuntu, Fedora Core 3 - 7, Red Hat 8.x - RHEL 3, Knoppix, Windows NT 4, 2K, XP home & pro, Vista on this hardware over the years - all with no problem. I am at a loss.

TIA,

Ken

Have you looked at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/En...systemLVMHowto

Also, how far does it get when you boot normally? Could it just be asking for the passphrase, but covered by the splash? (I've never done an encrypted root, only an encrypted home. Never saw the need for encryption of the OS.)

Thanks for the reply David. Yes, I had looked at the page you reference. More involved than I was interested in at the moment. That is why I decided to try the simple all in one process described at softpedia.com.

The boot process brings up the "...press escape for grub menu..." and 3 second count down. It then goes to a black screen with the cursor in the upper left. And it stays there. I never get to a splash screen or any GUI at all. Not even any text characters, just the cursor.

As to encrypting the whole disk (excepting the boot partition of course)... I have read some discussions re. where copies of data my be left e.g. /var, /tmp and swap and the value of protecting everything. Again, my interest in trying this was something quick and simple.

When I get a little time I will install again boot in rescue mode and compare things against what is shown on the page you referenced.

Thanks again,

Ken

Odd. Try hitting 'e' on the grub menu, going to the line with the "kernel" options, hit e again, and remove quiet and splash.

I am about to do the install again - the hard drive has the normal install from the "alternate" CD which I performed to make sure the CD and drive were OK. I will edit the grub settings and let you know what happens. I am also printing out the LVM HowTO an will check the items there against what the installer does.

Thanks,

Ken

Well I checked things against the HowTo. In the section titled "Rebuild ramdisk"...

It seems that my ramdisk modules file (/etc/initramfs-tools/modules) was empty. I added the lines as recommended, did the sudo update-initramfs -k all -c - it did not generate the expected directory structure.

Just for the heck of it I will install 7.10 on an LVM without encryption and see what happens.

Ken

7.10 on a non-encrypted LVM installed just fine. The 7.0.4 alternate CD does not have an install to encrypted LVM option so I cannot try that. I think I will put aside the encrypted issue for a while and fry some other fish.

Ken