Installed Neon Unstable boot error

[Beerislife]

Since I'm using Unstable on my test machine I thought it better to post here.

I just installed Neon Unstable on my test machine. It's 14" Lenovo ThinkPad Edge, about 11 years old, and runs Linux just fine!

This is pre EFI and is formatted as MBR, not GPT.

I have two partitions on the SSD:

/
/home

After rebooting, it just boots to a GRUB command line.

I'm guessing that running

sudo grub-install /dev/sda

Might fix it. I'm going to wander downstairs to try it. If I'm wrong, someone tell me! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Beerislife]

Nope, Grub Rescue doesn't understand...

[Beerislife]

I found fixes for /boot/grub/i386-pc/normal.mod not found

But it's too much work just for a test install of Plasma 6. Ignore this thread, I'll install something else!

[claydoh]

The neon section is fine for this, there isn't a need to over-compartmentalize things for it.

Are you sure it is pre-EFI? I have 13+ year old lower spec HP consumer grade laptop that is efi, or rather it can use both, as did my 2008 era PC, so it might be worth looking at bios options.
I don't think MBR installs are tested much by anyone, to be honest.
Also, the Unstable iso seems to get broken every so often, so it might just be one of those anomlies.I think they get rebuilt every week-ish, so a new build is due.

[Beerislife]

Definitely Pre-Efi...

I might give Neon stable a go on that machine to see it it really is a problem with the installer.

I had the same problem with Tuxedo OS on that machine.

It's cold and grey today so I can't see myself going out! I may as well play around a bit until the boss goes shopping and comes back
with the things I need to make a curry!

[Beerislife]

Umm, if stable installs OK, maybe I can change to the unstable repo and see if that works!

[claydoh]

That *should* work. it is what I'd do in a similar situation.

I believe that Tux and neon both use Calamares as the installer, which may be the common issue.

[oshunluvr]

I've been trying to get the latest Neon Unstable version to boot for the last two hours. Something is wrong with the installer config because grub is not being installed. When I attempt to boot directly from the grub prompt, I get an error that root is not set even though I set it before setting linuz and initrd.

[claydoh]

I think my current Unstable re-install was from the current Dec 24 iso, no issues booting here, or the quick test install on virt-manager (using a legacy bios setup even)

Automatic install on the mbr vm, and a manual partition setup on my EFI thin client.

[oshunluvr]

"Testing" is a newer ISO than "Unstable" and it installed just fine...

[claydoh]

"Testing" is a newer ISO than "Unstable" and it installed just fine...

Does it have Plasma 6 stuff yet?
Testing seems to break and/or lag behind in some areas at times., at least based om complaints in chat.
I *think* testing iso isn't updated as regularly, maybe this indicates new Unstable is being built.
I seem to have lost my build server links......

[oshunluvr]

Testing still on plasma 5...

[claydoh]

yeah, it pulls from current "stable+" git branch.

[Beerislife]

I suppose one could install Testing and then swap to the Unstable repo. I think I saw a link where someone had done that! Too early in the morning to look for it though!

[oshunluvr]

OK, so I reattempted the installation to a "fresh" VM and this time I selected "Erase and use the whole disk" or whatever it is and it installed and booted up. I'm updating 313 packages right now.

Beerislife: I attached the contents of /etc/apt/sources in case you want to try to "upgrade" a testing install to unstable.

[oshunluvr]

LOL, the update broke it and of course I didn't take a snap shot first - what a dummy...

[oshunluvr]

OK, I reinstalled - TOOK A SNAPSHOT - and this time LOOKED at the 300+ packages. There's 2 SDDM packages and the previous updated version wouldn't get past the GRUB screen so I assumed there were the issue. After updating this time, it boots up fine.