Bubba2 manual reinstall?

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Hi,

I've been trying now to the point of frustration to install bubba2 from USB stick to a new disk, without any success. Have tried dozens of different USB sticks (including the one from excito), USB hardrive and whatnot, without success. At best I get the installation process actually starting (high usb activity & front led blinking fast) but it just stops after about a minute, leaving the front led blinking at 1Hz forever.
I searched the forum and saw that some ppl have got success by manually partitioning/formatting the disk (and here I do not mean the USB stick, but the actual disk where the system is to be installed to).
I can connect the new disk with eSata cradle (e.g. to my Bubba3), but my Linux skills do not carry much further, so:
Could someone give some instructions what should be done to perform the install manually, from another machine, if that can be done at all?

TIA,
.g

[RandomUsername]

What version of the installer are you using? I had some problems installing with the 2.4 RC but the old 2.3 (I think) worked OK.

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What version of the installer are you using? I had some problems installing with the 2.4 RC but the old 2.3 (I think) worked OK.

First I tried with some older version that I had used previously, it was one of the 2.0.x releases but cannot remember which, and after no success I started trying with 2.4 RC. Yeah, maybe I'll also try with some other older versions, too.

But anyway, I think a lot of grief could be avoided if one could skip the whole USB stick mess by this kind of "remote/manual" install (connecting the hd to another machine). In addition, that way one might actually see if there are any errors during the install - now we are just in the dark hoping that everything goes well...
But like I said, my feeble user skills are no match to the power of seasoned linux admins - so has anyone tried the approach I'm looking for? Is it even possible?

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[RandomUsername]

I don't think you can do what you want. I've never heard of it being done this way. For example, an OS installer has to gather information about your hardware that it wouldn't be able to do if you're installing it on a different machine.

I checked the older installer I used and it's 2.0 which is still available from here: http://update.excito.net/install/latest/bubba-two/

[Ubi]

you can in fact do this, but only on a virtual machine with an ARM emulator and the HD mounted as a raw device. I think QEMU can indeed mimic ARM architectures, so in theory it may actually work. Well, provided that the virtualized hardware matches the Bubba...

[RandomUsername]

Yeah, I didn't think of using a VM but there are still so many other variables to consider you'd be looking at a world of pain even then.

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Ok, does not sound feasible. *sigh* I'll keep on trying the bleeding USB sticks then... I've got couple that have previously worked, maybe RC2.4 was the culprit after all.
How about the formatting/partitioning then? If I could do that manually, and then set the bubba.cfg not to partition/format? That way at least one possible failure could be eliminated?

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[RandomUsername]

Easiest way to partition it would be to use gparted on a Linux box. I suppose you could use Windows' disk manager. I think the config files gives the requirements but from memory, the first partition needs to be 10GB, then a 2 GB partition for swap and the rest for storage.

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Thanks for the info. I actually finally got minor success with 2.0 install image, to a point where bubba boots up (solid led) and responds to on/off button. Now, however, I cannot connect to it, not through lan, not through wan. I am now browsing through the forum and there seems to be plenty of topics already about this latest symptom, so the bleeping journey continues.. what a pain in the buck.

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[RandomUsername]

Is this a known good unit? Why are you reinstalling it? Connecting to it once installed should be fairly straightforward.

[ryz]

I don't think you can do what you want. I've never heard of it being done this way. For example, an OS installer has to gather information about your hardware that it wouldn't be able to do if you're installing it on a different machine.

Well I actually think it could be done for the Bubba2. If i remember correctly the installer first partition and format the drive and then only untar the whole file structure. That is Excito has just taken a snapshot and put it in an tar file. The untaring should be possible to do from any computer that can handle the tar format.

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Is this a known good unit? Why are you reinstalling it? Connecting to it once installed should be fairly straightforward.

Yes, a known good unit, and I'm reinstalling because I needed the 1TB drive elsewhere, so I popped in the 40GB SSD that originally came with my B3. And that SSD drive was fully working when in B3, and unused ever since I swapped a bigger HD to the B3.

Connecting to it once installed should be fairly straightforward.

Yes, I know... I've done this installing of new drive couple of times before without any problems with the connection (or this much problems with the install to start with...) And I think nothing has changed in my home LAN infra either since the last reinstall (which should not even matter since I couldn't connect directly from my laptop, either). I'll take some time this weekend to dig more into this connection issue.

That is Excito has just taken a snapshot and put it in an tar file.

That is exactly how I hoped it could be. Can RandomUsername or Ubi confirm? This might be worth gold for other users that have been fighting with incompatible USB sticks, too. Maybe even something to put on wiki page?

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[Ubi]

Dunno, but to come back to the orignial issue: if the USB sticks do not work, try a USB hard drive. These have a much higher success rate

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I finally got time to continue on this episode and, lo & behold, some success!

The starting point was that I still could not connect to my bubba2, even when the reinstall procedure resulted in a solid blue front led. No DHCP traces on my router, no given address when I connected bubba2 directly to my laptop, nothing. The thing I was worried about was that the install procedure never took more than 4-5 minutes max, which seemed too little. Something was clearly still going wrong.

So, no need to stick to this failing approach, I thought, and decided to try what "ryz" said.

I popped the SSD out of bubba2, into a cradle and connected it to my B3. The Web UI gave just some php errors when I navigated to the "disk" section in admin interface, so I connected via ssh and did "fdisk -l". It seemed that the three needed partitions existed on the SSD disk, so I mounted the system partition. First it seemed that it was OK, but when I did a quick diff to the tar archive on the install stick ,I noticed plenty of files missing. So, opportunistic that I am, I just untarred the whole thing on the mounted system partition.

SSD out of cradle, back into bubba2 and power on.

And what do I see - bubba2 booted up, got IP address from my router, and when connected via browser, entered the usual setup wizard!
Which was nice
I still get the same php errors when I go to the web ui disk section, so something is still not right with the disk or its partitions, but since I can now at least actually reach my dear old bubba2, I'm too tired and happy to dig further for now... the saga continues some other day.

.g