Hi, Steve
Thanks a lot for your answer! I'll try to answer your questions and I'll add
some new information on the problem.
> When you tried to run grub-install by hand, did you have /dev and
> /sys mounted ok in the chroot?
I'm not sure, I admit I didn't check for that. Just after I received the grub
error in the installer (the text one, just in case it's important), I switched
to a second console with Alt-F2, executed:
tail /var/log/syslog,
and I saw a line about executing
chroot /target grub-install --force "dummy"
and after that, the error I mentioned in my previous message:
grub-install: error: failed to get canonical path of `/dev/nvme0n1p1`
I did not mount or umount anything by myself, so the chrooted /target was in
the state the debian installer had left it after failing with the grub
installation.
> If you could try again and add a "-v"
> to the grub-install command line that will give us more
> information. It *will* be verbose, but only the last few lines are
> likely to matter.
I'll do that (sorry, but I won't have physical access to that system till
Monday).
> You don't describe the system hardware that you're working with. What
> do you have? This sounds like *potentially* a firmware issue, but it's
> not 100% clear yet.
Sorry, you are completely right. I'm attaching the lshw output for this
machine
I've been trying more ideas with this system, and I contacted the seller for
advice (they suggested changing some BIOS setup options, some of them related
to firmware, most of them related to UEFI settings).
After changing those options (I'm not completely sure if they had any effect,
but maybe) I reinstalled again with a simpler configuration (just to be
faster), without RAID or LVM, and just used standard partitions on the NVMe
disk (all the system partitions were in that disk). This time it failed again
on the grub installation, but there wasn't an explicit error message on the
syslog (just that it failed with status 1) and when tried the the grub
installation manually on a second console using:
chroot /target grub-install "dummy"
the error message was that grub-install was unable to find the
/usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/modinfo.sh
file. At that point, I tried continuing the installation without the boot
loader (didn't try that before), and the installer asked if I wanted to
install grub in a (I think, citing from memory) "external removable media". I
chose "Yes" and when I rebooted, among the options there was a new UEFI one
but the installer USB UEFI options were missing. Choosing the new option
brought me to the grub prompt, which was an improvement, but didn't boot the
system.
After (again citing from memory) issuing some grub commands, I don't remember
the exact parameters, but they were:
root (hdX,Y)
linux /boot/vmlinux-X root=/dev/nvme0n1p2
initrd /boot/initrd-X
boot
the system booted, as far as I can tell, correctly. I executed
grub-install /dev/nkvm0n1
on the newly booted system, which ran without errors, removed the installer
USB and got again a new UEFI option, but still I only got the grub prompt when
rebooting (I could boot from there with the same set of instructions as
before). I was planning on trying to find if I could get grub to execute those
instructions by itself, so the system can boot normally, and write a followup
to the bug report, but I just saw your message.
Sorry about the length of the message. Hope some of this information is
useful.
Regards,
Josep Guerrerokilimanjaro
description: Computer
product: AS -1013S-MTR (To be filled by O.E.M.)
vendor: Supermicro
version: 0123456789
serial: A324200X9405087
width: 64 bits
capabilities: smbios-3.1.1 dmi-3.1.1 smp vsyscall32
configuration: boot=normal family=To be filled by O.E.M. sku=To be filled
by O.E.M. uuid=----AC1F6B7CCF82
*-core
description: Motherboard
product: H11SSL-i
vendor: Supermicro
physical id: 0
version: 1.01
serial: ZM18CS600800
slot: To be filled by O.E.M.
*-firmware
description: BIOS
vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
physical id: 0
version: 1.1
date: 02/15/2019
size: 64KiB
capacity: 16MiB
capabilities: pci upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect socketedrom edd
int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int14serial
int17printer acpi usb biosbootspecification uefi
*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: 21
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 32GiB
capacity: 2TiB
capabilities: ecc
configuration: errordetection=multi-bit-ecc
*-bank:0
description: DIMM DDR4 Synchronous Registered (Buffered) 2667 MHz
(0.4 ns)
product: 9ASF1G72PZ-2G6D1
vendor: Micron Technology
physical id: 0
serial: 20E655A
