Attempting to install AntiX on Dell Mini 9 - Cannot select SSD as Disk in Installer

[Trekintosh]

Hello,

I burned the AntiX-Base ISO to a CD and am trying to install to my Dell Mini 9 with a 4GB mini-PCIE PATA SSD. The CD boots just fine, though I don't have wifi drivers(I was going to fix that after I installed the OS). I can use software as one would expect.

However, when I go to install the OS in the AntiX instaler, the Use Disk: dropdown is blank, and no amount of interaction can change that. I can see the disk in Gparted, and interact with it as one would expect. I wrote an MBR boot record to it, and later a GPT boot record. When I add a partition in GParted I can select "Custom install on existing partitions" in 1c. on the installer.

When I click next after choosing "auto-install using entire disk", however, it asks me if it is "OK to format and use the entire disk (/dev/) for antiX Linux?". The drive is /dev/sda, not /dev/. If I say yes to this, it errors out with "Failed to create required partitions. Returning to Step 1." If I try to use a custom install on existing partitions, it will let me pick normal partitions for Home, Swap, and Boot, but will only give me "partition-info fatal error:" or blank as an option. I did format the existing partition as ext4.


Can anyone give me any advice on what to do? Thanks.

[rokytnji.1]

4gig is too small for full iso install. So you did good using base iso. SD card can be used later on to setup for storage like Music and other things in home .

On my eeepcs with 4 gig drives.

I formatted the whole cheap phison ssd drive as ext3 with no /swap partition. MBR grub install was what I picked.

Made a swap file instead.

https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=46011

Lastly. Did you check your downloaded iso for file corruption?

[Trekintosh]

4gig is too small for full iso install. So you did good using base iso. SD card can be used later on to setup for storage like Music and other things in home .

On my eeepcs with 4 gig drives.

I formatted the whole cheap phison ssd drive as ext3 with no /swap partition. MBR grub install was what I picked.

Made a swap file instead.

https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=46011

Lastly. Did you check your downloaded iso for file corruption?

Well, I didn't check after I downloaded it, I just verified the disk after burning it. I suppose i can try that.

I don't think formatting is the issue as even with the drive unformatted and merely initialized, it still doesn't show up in the select disk dropdown at all.


Is there possibly a CLI installer interface that will let me force the disk instead of relying on the dropdown to populate correctly?

EDIT: For what it's worth, I tried formatting it in Ex3 like you said you had done, and it still doesn't show up as a disk in the installer.

[BitJam]

Is there possibly a CLI installer interface that will let me force the disk instead of relying on the dropdown to populate correctly?

Yes, there is a basic cli installer called "cli-installer". Here is a video showing how to use it: Antix Core - Custom Install Part I - Installing AntiX Core

I would like to fix the problem in the GUI installer. If you don't mind, would you please post the output of these two commands:

Code: Select all

sudo partition-info all
sudo  lsblk -o name,maj:min,size,fstype,parttype

There may be a quick fix you can make to the partition-info script to get the drop down to work correctly on your system. Thanks. That script can be used as an "escape hatch" for problems like yours. If we can fix it for you then we fix it for everyone else who has a similar problem.

[Trekintosh]

Is there possibly a CLI installer interface that will let me force the disk instead of relying on the dropdown to populate correctly?

Yes, there is a basic cli installer called "cli-installer". Here is a video showing how to use it: Antix Core - Custom Install Part I - Installing AntiX Core

I would like to fix the problem in the GUI installer. If you don't mind, would you please post the output of these two commands:

Code: Select all

sudo partition-info all
sudo  lsblk -o name,maj:min,size,fstype,parttype

There may be a quick fix you can make to the partition-info script to get the drop down to work correctly on your system. Thanks. That script can be used as an "escape hatch" for problems like yours. If we can fix it for you then we fix it for everyone else who has a similar problem.

I completely agree that fixing it for everyone would be preferable.

after a botched install of Vector Linux my partition-info reads like

Code: Select all

NAME      SIZE          FS     LABEL
sda1   -   2.4G     -  ext3
sda2   -   954.6M -  swap

and the lsblk is

Code: Select all

NAME   MAJ:MIN     SIZE      FSTYPE     PARTTYPE
loop         7:0      638.6M    squashfs
sda          8:0         3.5G
|-- sda1   8:1         2.4G     ext3              0x83
|-- sda2   8:2       954.6M   swap             0x83
sr0         11:0        660M     iso9660

NOTE: After deleting said partitions (and applying the actions in gparted) my partition-info all is blank. The lsblk is the same except without the sda1 and sda2 entries. The AntiX installer behaves identically.

[BitJam]

Thanks for the info Trekintosh! As Roky already said, I think the installer is balking at the tiny amount of space you have available. If it doesn't look like there is enough room then (I think) we don't list the drives or partitions.

You can try to work around this by disabling the --min-size option in partition-info. BUT I have a couple of warnings and suggestions.

1) here is a bug in the installer in antiX-17.3 explained here: Serious bug installing antiX-17.3 full and base versions. I think the cli installer is okay.

2) I think you will have a better experience if you just run the live-usb (with persistence) or do a frugal install with persistence. The frugal install will transfer the live-usb to your ssd. You would then need to live-usb to boot your system but after that you could unplug it. We could also help you install grub on your ssd to boot to the frugal install. A slight variation on this is to run the live-usb and put persistence files on the ssd for speed. The reason to do this is to save even more space on the ssd. In this case you would need to keep the live-usb plugged in in order to run. In either case you need to already have the ssd partition set up with a file system. I almost always recommend using ext4 because the journaling makes the file system much more robust. Basically, the program to fix the file system in case of a power outage or bad crash runs fast on ext4 and fixes the problems. On ext3 and earlier it takes a long time to run and then doesn't fix the problems.

2.a) For a frugal install, in the legacy bootloader use the "F5 Persist" menu and select "frugal_static". Also select "F8 Save" --> "save" to save this selection across reboots.

2.b) To run from the live-usb with persistence files on the ssd select "F5 Persist" --> "persist_static" and in the "boot options" box type in "pdev=sda1" to use the first partition on sda for holding the persistence files. Also use "F8 Save" --> "save" to save these settings across reboots.

Okay, now if you want to try to run the GUI installer anyway then you should be able to disable the size check by editing (as root) the file /sbin/partition-info and add one line "MIN_SIZE=" at line 145 so the new code reads:

Code: Select all

    # Allow options before and after the command
    read_params "$@"
    shift $SHIFT
    MIN_SIZE=

Be careful, the code above the new line is used twice and you want to make sure the new line is added after the second time read_params is called.

Again, with such little space available, I think you are better off running a live-usb or a frugal install. We are very proud of our live system: The Most Extensive Live-usb on the Planet! Many people use our live-usb (or frugal) as their main system.

HTH

[dolphin_oracle]

you could adjust the /usr/share/gazelle-installer-data/installer.conf file to reflect a smaller min. size. the MX version sets this to 6000, the antiX version sets this to 4000, but your drive might be showing as slightly smaller than that, and so all the partitions and drives are still filtered out.

I thought we had a warning message for this condition though but maybe not. If not, that's probably something we should add.


although I agree with BitJam about running a frugal install.

[sunrat]

I recently installed AntiX on the 4GB SSD of an EeePC 900. The graphical installer detected it as 3.8GB and refused to install, but the CLI installer worked fine. IIRC it used about 2.5GB.

[dolphin_oracle]

I recently installed AntiX on the 4GB SSD of an EeePC 900. The graphical installer detected it as 3.8GB and refused to install, but the CLI installer worked fine. IIRC it used about 2.5GB.

in that case adjusting the min. size from 4000 to 3500 should work.

[Trekintosh]

Thank you all for the information.

BitJam, I greatly appreciate the information. I agree that the live-USB frugal install would probably be the "best" option, but I am mainly using this computer as an experimental and learning device. I'm fairly versed in using Linux on many Raspberry Pis, but things are so well documented there I'm not really learning. This machine will be for me bumbling about on my own, breaking things left and right, and I want to install on this ultra tight disk. I'm added a mini PCIe to dual MicroSD card adapter to have all the storage I'll ever need, as well as possibly adding a normal SD card in the existing reader. Also I simply don't want to have to give up a USB port if I don't have to.

The GUI installer works after adding the MIN_SIZE= line, like you said. I was able to select the disk, and it is installing now. I'll be sure to add the chown fix once I get up and running.

Dolphin, thank you for the additional option. I could try it to see if that also works after the install finishes, just so it's known if it works or not. My SSD does show up as 3.5GB once formatted, for what it's worth. I agree that a warning message would have more clearly illustrated my problem. I figured it was related to not being large enough, but without any feedback from the software, I had no way to be sure.