Re: Weird boot problem. How can this be?

2013-11-09 Thread Ray Dillinger

On 11/09/2013 06:08 AM, didier gaumet wrote:


The machine is an Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard, IA64 "Sandy Bridge"
architecture,

[...]

On the Asus website, this is not an IA64 motherboard, but a X86-64
(amd64) one. Trying an amd64 version of Debian could help...


On the ASUS website the board has an Intel Chipset with LGA 2011 CPU socket:
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_X79/#overview

LGA 2011 is compatible with Intel 64-bit processors including "Sandy Bridge:"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_2011

And that seemed to clinch it, except that the damn thing wasn't working, so I
went to a third source and discovered why I was wrong:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/amd64

The news to me is that INTEL ever deigned to release something whose instruction
set is commonly known as AMD-anything.  I've been assuming that "Intel 64" would
be "IA64" instruction set and "AMD 64" would be "AMD64" instruction set.  So...

You're right.  I shouldn't have said "IA64" in the first place, to describe
either of the machines this is from.  I should have said "Intel 64-bit 
processor"
which I had been assuming was the same thing.  More to the point I should not 
have
downloaded the IA64 images.

Thank  you.

Ray


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive: http://lists.debian.org/527e75c5.2010...@sonic.net



Weird boot problem. How can this be?

2013-11-09 Thread Ray Dillinger


I have a strange problem where my computer does not recognize *ANY* boot device
or boot medium other than one single hard drive where a badly configured debian
linux is installed.  I don't think the particulars of that messed-up install
are relevant, but I've put a note about it at the bottom just in case.

I don't understand how it can possibly happen, because I have completely 
unplugged
that hard drive, flashed the BIOS of the machine with the most recent update, 
installed
a brand new blank hard drive, and it *STILL* doesn't recognize any boot medium 
or
boot device unless I plug the drive with that messed-up install back in.

The machine is an Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard, IA64 "Sandy Bridge" 
architecture,
with an ASUS SATA DVD-ROM in the chassis and a generic DVD-ROM attached via 
USB2.  If
I don't have the single bootable hard drive (incidentally a 3 TB Seagate drive)
installed in the chassis, NO device will boot.  And if I do have it installed in
the chassis, no OTHER device will boot.

I want to fix my confused install by creating a clean "Jessie/Testing" system to
migrate data to.  But when I put a bootable 'Jessie' netinst disk into it (in 
either
drive) and a blank hard disk to format for a new system, and I get

"No Operating System Found" if I go straight into the BIOS boot menu and tell it
to boot off the drive that contains the netinst disk, or

"No bootable medium found; Please insert bootable disk into boot drive and 
press any
key" if I set the boot order so that the drive with the netinst is included.

I have also tried booting directly from a USB stick; it does exactly the same 
thing.

My main relevant current limitation in using the messed up install is that "su" 
and
"sudo" are both broken; to do anything as root, I have to be logged in as root.
There are some others, and lots of documentation that's just plain wrong about 
where
things are installed etc, but not being able to su or sudo is the most annoying.


My messed up install started as "Sarge" in a different IA64 machine a long time 
ago,
got upgraded to "Lenny" and then "Wheezy" when "Wheezy" was still experimental.
"Wheezy" was very definitely not ready for prime time, and I did some major 
config
hacking just to get a usable KDE desktop on it.  Used it that way for several
years, then I moved the drive to the current chassis and motherboard and "sorted
out" several new issues that that caused, by hand.  Next I wanted something from
the "Experimental" distro, so I downloaded it - and forgot to take 
"Experimental"
out of my debian sources list immediately afterward.  Over the next couple of
weeks, about half the software got "upgraded" to flaky versions not available in
"Wheezy".  I started trying to sort out issues and do configuration, and I wound
up with a bizarre mutant hybrid.

Then I realized I had "Experimental" in my sources, got rid of it, Added 
"Testing"
(which by this time was Jessie heading into the current freeze), and used dpkg 
to
get RID OF every version of everything that it couldn't still download.  That 
broke
a bunch of stuff, and I've managed fix some by hand and work around the rest of 
it
for several weeks now.   I don't see how it can be relevant when this drive 
isn't
even attached and I'm still having this problem, but if you can think of any 
reason
why it might be, do let me know.

Anyway, this is driving me bonkers.  If anybody has any clues as to what could 
be
wrong on such a basic level as to affect boot behavior on a blank hard drive 
and a
net install disk, and that immediately after flashing the BIOS, please do let 
me know.

Bear


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive: http://lists.debian.org/527df1b0.4070...@sonic.net