The return of 'Problem booting install media on new(-ish) laptop'
 

I'm experiencing a similar problem as pchristy was when trying to
install Slackware-current via usb stick.

I've used a dvd to install Slackware 14.2 on a laptop that has windows 10.

I've created a usb with 'current on it. When I try use it to install 'current' on the laptop, then the install process halts at the prompt to choose a keyboard map. Laptop freezes completely. Have to use the power down button.

I read pchristy's thread and followed the method described there but no luck.

Tried using usbimg2disk.sh to create usb and modified grub.cfg etc.
But this gives me completely different results to pchristy. The installer doesn't get passed the grub loader (doesn't start loading kernel). Instead it drops directly to the grub prompt.

I also tried the other way described which is: created a GPT partition table and a single FAT32 partition then copied the EFI, kernels and isolinux folders from the -current tree onto the usb. This does bootup but
also fails at the prompt to choose a keyboard map, where it freezes completely.

lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 8087:0a2a Intel Corp.
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 046d:c00e Logitech, Inc. M-BJ58/M-BJ69 Optical Wheel Mouse
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0b05:1854 ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 13d3:5666 IMC Networks
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

/sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v6/7th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 05)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) (rev 05)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 630 (rev 04)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/v6 / E3-1500 v5 / 6th/7th Gen Core Processor Gaussian Mixture Model
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family USB 3.0 xHCI Controller (rev 31)
00:14.2 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family Thermal Subsystem (rev 31)
00:15.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family Serial IO I2C Controller #0 (rev 31)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 31)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation HM170/QM170 Chipset SATA Controller [AHCI Mode] (rev 31)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #3 (rev f1)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #4 (rev f1)
00:1c.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #7 (rev f1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM175 Chipset LPC/eSPI Controller (rev 31)
00:1f.2 Memory controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family Power Management Controller (rev 31)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation CM238 HD Audio Controller (rev 31)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family SMBus (rev 31)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile] (rev a1)
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7265 (rev 59)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
04:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5229 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)

I cannot use the dvd drive any more as it isn't working. Is there a way to install current by booting up to 14.2 without making a mess of things?
Any ideas? I can post whatever info to help.

TIA

If you have install-media on another computer you could try installing via pxe (see 'slackware(64)-current/usb-and-pxe-installers/'). I managed to do this quite a long while ago so no idea how easy it is nowadays...

brobr: Good idea. I've been thinking about trying pxe but was put off by complexity,for example see these links:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...to-4175670399/
https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/pxe-boot-uefi/

But I'll reread AlienBob's method.

BTW When I post to LQ I sometimes cannot insert html links, code blocks, etc. Those little buttons at the top of mesage composition area sometimes work and sometimes do not...using firefox 64.6.0.

Just allow yourself time for it; I remember that I followed the README_PXE.txt to the dot, step by step, and it worked fine. The most difficult thing then was how to connect the computers (this was before the days of home-LANs).

I'm actually glad that this keyboard problem occured :-) I'm housebound so have plenty of time to look into pxe installs. Thanks for pointing out the README_PXE.TXT file, sometimes the most obvious is not seen.
I'll have to create a temp network to test on first. Fingers crossed!

Oh btw, I just scuppered an upgrade on my old computer and had to use a rescue USB-stick. I noticed you had used various methods to get a bootable USB but wondered whether you've tried this method which I am using nowadays since I found that only one of the usb-sticks i got works as a booting medium. I tend to use this stick to boot in cases like the above and then mount an external/internal drive containing the packages needed to install/upgrade. So you can get away with a cheapish small stick.

Assuming you run in EFI-mode, then: Partition the usb stick in two and format the first ~100 Mb partition as EFI (EF00, i.e. fat32, with flags boot,esp) and the second one as ext4 (will be used as /).

Then -as root- mount the first usb-partition under say /mnt/usb (need to make that mount point with mkdir /mnt/usb; also make a /mnt/loop). Assuming you have a repository with the slackware packages in 'somewhere', then Copy everything from /mnt/loop/* to /mnt/usb/ (I tend to do this in mc (midnight commander; with F5) as I can immediately see that it worked)

Unmount both /mnt/loop and /mnt/usb

Mount the second usb partition in say /mnt/hd (or whatever) and create a root folder structure on that partition (as if there is slackware installed on it): thus cd /mnt/hd; mkdir bin boot dev etc home lib lib64 lost+found media mnt opt proc root run sbin srv sys tmp usr var. Somehow this structure needs to be present for the usb-stick to work as a rescue/install-medium.

Whenever, I need to update to a newer kernel I follow the above procedure (the normally used method has made too many of the larger usb-drives I tried unbootable)

The return of 'Problem booting install media on new(-ish) laptop'
 

I have a few (old? usb2?) thumb drives that won't boot. Had problems even to launch live Slackware (indeed, when done, install is as simple as fire setup2hd script).
Since I had almost 20 laptops to install without network access, I went with a working usb with the mini current iso on it and the repo on another stick (automatically detected by installer)....

Tonus: It sounds like you have a good system for installation.
My problem is that on the laptop the keyboard doesn't work at the point where you need to enter data, 1st instance is where you choose keyboard map. So installation just won't happen. I even tried plugging in a usb keyboard. I suspect that on this particular laptop the keybaord chip handler (whatever) is just weird enough that the huge kernel is missing a key module (or module option) to make keyboard inoperable. One could try to recompile the huge kernel to see if some obscure option fixes this. I'm going to look at pxe if that fails I'll use brute force: move hard drive from laptop to a usb adapter and install from another machine then put it back into laptop. If only I had a spare laptop dvd drive lying around :-)

[SOLVED] The return of 'Problem booting install media on new(-ish) laptop'
 

I'm marking this issue solved because I have in fact been able to install current but how I did it raises more issues for me.
First of all I tried installing current via pxe. I created a pxe server and tested it for 14.2 to an old pc. This worked! Then I replaced 14.2 tree with current tree and tried to install to laptop. Failed. When I select network boot in UEFI/BIOS it boots straight to windows. So put this aside for now.

Then I made an iso image of Slackware 14.2 but with the slackware64 directory replaced with that from current. This works flawlessly. So I installed current this way on the laptop. Everything seems to work find except laptop crashes when I do a startx. By crashes I mean laptop powers down straight away. However just before screens turns black I can see a dump of many lines scrolling with the word 'nouveau'.

I then tried the following:

Kali - live

[SOLVED] The return of 'Problem booting install media on new(-ish) laptop'
 

Sorry posted previous by mistake:

I'm marking this issue solved because I have in fact been able to install current but how I did it raises more issues for me.
First of all I tried installing current via pxe. I created a pxe server and tested it for 14.2 to an old pc. This worked! Then I replaced 14.2 tree with current tree and tried to install to laptop. Failed. When I select network boot in UEFI/BIOS it boots straight to windows. So put this aside for now.

Then I made an iso image of Slackware 14.2 but with the slackware64 directory replaced with that from current. This works flawlessly. So I installed current this way on the laptop. Everything seems to work find except laptop crashes when I do a startx. By crashes I mean laptop powers down straight away. However just before screens turns black I can see a dump of many lines scrolling with the word 'nouveau'.

I then tried the following:
Kali live mode - works find
Kali install mode - fails to install and crashes laptop
Tor works fine
Ubuntu 20.04 beta - live mode crashes (loads nouveau?)

I think then I can conclude that a 5.x kernel causes keyboard to not work (and maybe other problems as well) and definitely the nouveau driver crashes the laptop.