Bug 438390 - Regression: Installation fails on BTRFS
Summary: Regression: Installation fails on BTRFS
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 436005
Alias: None
Product: neon
Classification: KDE Neon
Component: Live/Install images (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Neon Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Neon Bugs
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2021-06-10 08:10 UTC by iGadget
Modified: 2021-06-11 07:46 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

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Latest Commit:
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Sentry Crash Report:


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Description iGadget 2021-06-10 08:10:32 UTC
SUMMARY
As per https://www.reddit.com/r/kdeneon/comments/nw6y94/neon_installation_clusterf/
 - The Calamares installer does not seem to work with BTRFS on the latest Neon ISOs.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Run installer on Neon Live ISO
2. When reaching 'Partitions', choose 'Manual partitioning'
3. Select an existing partition (though this might be caused with a new partition as well), click 'Edit'
4. Click 'Format'
5. Choose BTRFS as filesystem
6. Select '/' as mount point and click 'OK'
7. Select your EFI partition, click 'Edit', keep the content and set '/boot/efi' as mount point, flags 'boot'.
8. Continue installation

OBSERVED RESULT

When Grub is being configured / installed, I get this error:

--------8<------------
Installation Failed

Boost.Python error in job "bootloader"

Command 'grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=neon --force' returned non-zero status exit 1.

Installing for x86_64-efi platform.

grub-install: error: cannot find a device for /boot/grub (is /dev mounted?).

Traceback:

File "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/calamares/modules/bootloader/main.py, line 477, in run prepare_bootloader(fw_type)

File "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/calamares/modules/bootloader/main.py, line 449, in prepare_bootloader install(efi_directory, fw_type)

File "<string>, line 5, in <module>
--------8<------------

Also, when mounting the target BTRFS partition, it is empty. Instead, the system appears to be 'installed' into /tmp.

EXPECTED RESULT

The Neon installer should work fine with BTRFS (and it has in the past, so this is a regression!)

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux/KDE Plasma: Neon Live USB
(available in About System)
KDE Plasma Version: 5.21.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.82.0
Qt Version: 5.15.2

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
I used neon-user-20210527-0944.iso, but previous versions apparently have this regression as well. As per the comments on the linked Reddit thread, 'older' images do not seem to have this issue, but I don't know which version(s) exactly.
Comment 1 iGadget 2021-06-10 09:07:48 UTC
Using neon-user-20210609-1125.iso, the installer produces a crash when it's displaying 'formatting /dev/nvme0n1p1 as btrfs' (which is pretty disturbing by itself, since nvme0n1p1 is the EFI partition, NOT the partition I'm install Neon to!).
Perhaps this crash is because the partition was now formatted as EXT4 instead of already being BTRFS.

Other than that, the installation seems to continue after that and, unfortunately, the original issue remains.
Comment 2 iGadget 2021-06-10 09:16:06 UTC
Worse - even though the installer claims it could not install GRUB, it does in fact mess up the existing boot configuration - I now just get a GRUB prompt after booting, no menu, nothing. This bug *really* sucks.
Comment 3 Diogo88 2021-06-10 11:57:43 UTC
(In reply to iGadget from comment #0)
> SUMMARY
> As per
> https://www.reddit.com/r/kdeneon/comments/nw6y94/neon_installation_clusterf/
>  - The Calamares installer does not seem to work with BTRFS on the latest
> Neon ISOs.
> 
> STEPS TO REPRODUCE
> 1. Run installer on Neon Live ISO
> 2. When reaching 'Partitions', choose 'Manual partitioning'
> 3. Select an existing partition (though this might be caused with a new
> partition as well), click 'Edit'
> 4. Click 'Format'
> 5. Choose BTRFS as filesystem
> 6. Select '/' as mount point and click 'OK'
> 7. Select your EFI partition, click 'Edit', keep the content and set
> '/boot/efi' as mount point, flags 'boot'.
> 8. Continue installation
> 
> OBSERVED RESULT
> 
> When Grub is being configured / installed, I get this error:
> 
> --------8<------------
> Installation Failed
> 
> Boost.Python error in job "bootloader"
> 
> Command 'grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi
> --bootloader-id=neon --force' returned non-zero status exit 1.
> 
> Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
> 
> grub-install: error: cannot find a device for /boot/grub (is /dev mounted?).
> 
> Traceback:
> 
> File "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/calamares/modules/bootloader/main.py, line
> 477, in run prepare_bootloader(fw_type)
> 
> File "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/calamares/modules/bootloader/main.py, line
> 449, in prepare_bootloader install(efi_directory, fw_type)
> 
> File "<string>, line 5, in <module>
> --------8<------------
> 
> Also, when mounting the target BTRFS partition, it is empty. Instead, the
> system appears to be 'installed' into /tmp.
> 
> EXPECTED RESULT
> 
> The Neon installer should work fine with BTRFS (and it has in the past, so
> this is a regression!)
> 
> SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
> Linux/KDE Plasma: Neon Live USB
> (available in About System)
> KDE Plasma Version: 5.21.5
> KDE Frameworks Version: 5.82.0
> Qt Version: 5.15.2
> 
> ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
> I used neon-user-20210527-0944.iso, but previous versions apparently have
> this regression as well. As per the comments on the linked Reddit thread,
> 'older' images do not seem to have this issue, but I don't know which
> version(s) exactly.

I have the same problem with installing Neon on root BTRFS.
Comment 4 iGadget 2021-06-11 07:45:09 UTC
Upstream bug report: https://github.com/calamares/calamares/issues/1682

This mentions a possible workaround:

1.Download https://github.com/calamares/calamares/blob/calamares/src/modules/mount/mount.conf
2. Copy the file to the /calamares/desktop/modules/ on live cd before start calamares
3. Start calamares and start installation

Also, this issue has apparently already been reported before. Marking as duplicate.
Comment 5 iGadget 2021-06-11 07:46:35 UTC
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 436005 ***