Another case of “Waiting for /dev to be fully populated” [SOLVED]

[Member impassable-highchair93]

Hi antiXforum!

I’m trying to try out antiX on a ~2011 iMac 5,1 desktop. It has 1 GB of RAM and a Intel Core 2 Duo (64 bit) processor.

I know this “Waiting for /dev to be fully populated” issue has been discussed before. I think I’m having the same symptom but the same solutions don’t seem to help in my case.

STEPS I’VE TAKEN:
1. Download antiX-22_x64-full.iso from SourceForge, and verify md5 and sah256 sums (they checked out exactly).
2. Flash ISO to a 64-GB USB drive (using Pop_OSs USB Flasher)
3. Reboot the 2007 iMac, holding down the Alt/Option key on boot. Click the EFI boot option
4. The UEFI antiX boot screen loads just fine. Going with the default boot options takes me to a black (but lit) screen.
5. Keying ‘e’ and editing GRUB settings to “nosplash” and removing “quiet” and hitting F10 shows me a flurry of text before hanging on “Waiting for /dev to be fully populated”. (I wish I could get more info here, to see what’s causing the hang…)
6. Next, I tried to get to a command line in order to poke around. Adding “nomodeset nosplash” to the GRUB options gets me to a command line where I’m instructed to log in as root with password root.

Now, from this command line, I can access a cli installer, BUT I was really hoping to try antiX on this machine before making a partition and installing it. So, with that in mind, I tried a few things like
1. adding “intel_iommu=igfx_off” to GRUB options -> hangs at “Waiting for /dev to be fully populated”
2. Adding “video=SVIDEO-1:d” to GRUB options -> hangs at “Waiting for /dev to be fully populated”

Next, based on someone else’s post, I went be to that command line I got to in step 6 and ran “rm /usr/lib/udev/hid2hci”. I then tried to run “sudo update-grub” — on the assumption that this “rm” change would not survive a reboot — but I got an error: “error: failed to get canonical path of overlay”. Googling this error, most advice had to do with re-installing GRUB, which seemed strange (not to mention difficult and easy to mess up), so I didn’t try that (yet).

Following other advice from this forum/the internet, I’ll provide a few commands and thier outputs when I’m on the command line from step 6 below:

“xrandr” => “Can’t open display”

“inxi -Gxxx” =>

Graphics:
  Device-1 AMD RV530/M56-P [Mobility Radeon X1600] vendor Apple MacBook Pro driver: N/A
    arch: Rage 7 bus-ID 01:00.0 chip-ID 1002:71c5 classiID: 0300
  Display: server: X.org v: 1.20.11 driver: X: loaded: vesa unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,radeon
    gpu: N/A tty: 113x34
  Message: GL data unavailable in console for root

lspci –nk | grep -i -EA3 “3D|display|vga” =>

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV530/M56-P [Mobility Radeon X1600] [1002:715c]
        Subsystem: Apple Inc. MacBook Pro [106b:0080]
        Kernel modules: radeon
02:00 Ethernet controller [0200]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller [11ab:4363] (rev 22)

I hope this is an acceptable forum post. The thing that really gives me hope for antiX is that, for fun, I try MX Linux (“MX-21.2.1_fluxbox_x64.iso”) on this same machine first. By simply adding “nomodeset” to the GRUB options, it loaded right up! As expected, MX Linux ate up the 1 GB of RAM and very quickly become un-usably slow, so I didn’t install it, but it did give me lots of hope that there is some simple tweak to be made to my antiX process to get it working too!

• This topic was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by impassable-highchair93. Reason: formatting
• This topic was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by impassable-highchair93. Reason: formatting take 3
• This topic was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by BobC.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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Afraid I aint much help on a Mac. Not sure if this is the same problem or not

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/405913/newly-installed-debian-stuck-on-loading-on-macbook-pro-core-2-duo-2-16

For the graphics issue

sudo dmesg | grep firmware

Might tell you some firmware may be missing.

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I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

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How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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Just wondering if you used the F key cheat codes on grub boot screen

Video

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I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

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[Member impassable-highchair93]

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My antiX boot screen just says “UEFI” in the bottom left — doesn’t offer F key options. It’s exactly like the screen at 7:33 in that video. I think I tried hitting some F keys just in case, but I don’t think anything happened.

And that nifty firmware check command returns 4 lines all mentioning iSight, which I assume is the machine’s built-in video camera. Don’t think that’s an issue? But I certainly don’t need, so if I have to somehow tell the boot “skip iSight camera” and that could make it load correctly I’d be more than happy to try that.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by impassable-highchair93.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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So. After selecting kernel. No f key selection on grub screen shows up like on his video?

Makes me wonder if iso downloaded is corrupted. Md5sum check of downloaded iso done?

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I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

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[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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https://antixlinux.com/forum-archive/how-to-set-my-antix-pc-to-always-boot-with-vesa-vi-t5541.html#p39763

Might work.

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Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

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[Member impassable-highchair93]

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So. After selecting kernel. No f key selection on grub screen shows up like on his video?

Yes, that’s correct. See attached photo.

Makes me wonder if iso downloaded is corrupted. Md5sum check of downloaded iso done?

I wish it was an iso download issue, but I did check the md5sum and sha sum and they matched what was on SourceForge (and even used this exact USB stick successfully install antiX 22 on a different Mac (a 2008 laptop) today, which was awesome and went smoothly).

As per that post, I tried adding “xdrvr=vesa” as a GRUB parameter (i.e. right after “nosplash”). I hit F10, but in the series of text on screen, one said that “xdrvr=vesa” was an unrecognized/ignore parameter. And then it hung on “Waiting for /dev to be fully populated”, as usual.

I’d love to try running:

CMDLINE=xdrvr=vesa /usr/sbin/buildxconfig
cat xorg.conf
sudo cp xorg.conf /etc/X11

But I can’t figure out how to get to a command line AND have the changes I make actually take effect in the boot process (“sudo grub-update” throws an error, as described above). Any ideas there?

Thank you so much for these replies.

Attachments:

1. 

   my-antiX-boot-screen-scaled.jpg
   

[Member impassable-highchair93]

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I think I got it! At leave the live USB has booted! I needed to add the “failsafe” GRUB boot option. This page on boot options was super helpful. I’ll note here that if failsafe didn’t work, I was going to also try “xorg=safe”, “load=all”, and “lean”.

Now trying to use the GUI installer. If I have issues and need to ask more questions, I’ll start another topic here.

Thanks again! Please mark as solved?

• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by impassable-highchair93.
• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by impassable-highchair93. Reason: update link to 22 version doc

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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Well. When done. How about spitting out a inxi report after install is done so any mac user can see what the hardware is using with your cheat codes.

inxi -zv7 -r

I kinda wish a inxi was done while running live before install was done to see what the boot cheat codes accomplished on your mac .
No biggy.

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

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How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Member PPC]

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impassable-highchair93 wrote:

Now trying to use the GUI installer. If I have issues and need to ask more questions, I’ll start another topic here.

Nice! Congratulations!
I consider 1 Gb of RAM as the bare mininum to use the modern web in antiX- you’ll have to be very careful with RAM usage- I suggest using light web browsers, smtube for streaming youtube, thunderbird/seamokey e-mail to access your e-mail, instead of using webmail (claws, if you can configure your e-mail account in it, is the lighter option).
Try not to multitask a lot, or you may find that using the swap slows the device to a crawl. Other than that, if you don’t have hardware problems, it’s all smooth sailing in antiX.
If you can upgrade your device to 2Gb of RAM , it would be much more usable…

P.

[Member impassable-highchair93]

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How about spitting out a inxi report after install is done so any mac user can see what the hardware is using with your cheat codes.

On my live antiX USB, I ran:
inxi -zv7 -r

and got

    
System:
      Kernel: 4.9.0-326-antix.1-amd64-smp arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
        v: 10.2.1 Desktop: IceWM v: 3.0.1 dm: slimski v: 1.5.0
        Distro: antiX-22_x64-full Grup Yorum 18 October 2022
        base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
    Machine:
      Type: Desktop System: Apple product: iMac5,1 v: 1.0
        serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 13 v: Mac-F4228EC8
        serial: <superuser required>
      Mobo: Apple model: Mac-F4228EC8 v: DVT serial: <superuser required>
        UEFI: Apple v: IM51.88Z.0090.B09.0706270921 date: 06/27/07
    Battery:
      Message: No system battery data found. Is one present?
    Memory:
      RAM: total: 991.4 MiB used: 646 MiB (65.2%)
      RAM Report:
        permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required.
    CPU:
      Info: dual core model: Intel Core2 T7400 bits: 64 type: MCP
        smt: <unsupported> arch: Core2 Merom rev: 6 cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 4 MiB
      Speed (MHz): avg: 1583 high: 2167 min/max: 1000/2167 cores: 1: 1000
        2: 2167 bogomips: 8655
      Flags: acpi aperfmperf apic arch_perfmon bts clflush cmov constant_tsc
        cx16 cx8 de ds_cpl dtes64 dtherm dts est fpu fxsr ht kaiser lahf_lm lm mca
        mce mmx monitor msr mtrr nopl nx pae pat pbe pdcm pebs pge pni pse pse36
        sep ss sse sse2 ssse3 syscall tm tm2 tpr_shadow tsc vme vmx xtpr
    Graphics:
      Device-1: AMD RV530/M56-P [Mobility Radeon X1600] vendor: Apple MacBook Pro
        driver: N/A arch: Rage 7 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:71c5 class-ID: 0300
      Display: server: X.Org v: 1.20.11 driver: X: loaded: N/A unloaded: fbdev
        gpu: N/A display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
      Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1680x1050 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 445x278mm (17.52x10.94")
        s-diag: 525mm (20.66")
      Monitor-1: default res: 1680x1050 size: N/A modes: N/A
      OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.0.1 128 bits) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.3.5
        compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes
    Audio:
      Device-1: Intel NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio
        vendor: SigmaTel STAC9221 Codec driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
        bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:27d8 class-ID: 0403
      Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k4.9.0-326-antix.1-amd64-smp running: yes
    Network:
      Device-1: Marvell 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet driver: sky2 v: 1.30
        port: 1000 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 11ab:4362 class-ID: 0200
      IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
      IP v4: <filter> scope: global broadcast: <filter>
      IP v6: <filter> type: dynamic mngtmpaddr scope: global
      IP v6: <filter> scope: link
      Device-2: Broadcom BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n vendor: Apple AirPort Extreme
        driver: b43-pci-bridge v: N/A bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:4328
        class-ID: 0280
      IF-ID-1: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
      WAN IP: <filter>
    Bluetooth:
      Device-1: Apple Bluetooth HCI type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 5-1:4
        chip-ID: 05ac:8206 class-ID: fe01
      Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: stopped
        rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: <filter>
    Logical:
      Message: No logical block device data found.
    RAID:
      Message: No RAID data found.
    Drives:
      Local Storage: total: 290.64 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
      ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD2500JS-40TGB0
        size: 232.89 GiB speed: 1.5 Gb/s type: N/A serial: <filter> rev: 6C04
        scheme: GPT
      ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: Kingston model: DT Elite G2
        size: 57.75 GiB type: N/A serial: <filter> rev: PMAP scheme: MBR
      Optical-1: /dev/sr0 vendor: MATSHITA model: DVD-R UJ-85J rev: FCQ5
        dev-links: cdrom,cdrw,dvd,dvdrw
      Features: speed: 24 multisession: yes audio: yes dvd: yes
        rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r state: running
    Partition:
      Message: No partition data found.
    Swap:
      Alert: No swap data was found.
    Unmounted:
      ID-1: /dev/sda1 size: 157.69 GiB fs: ext4 label: N/A
        uuid: 8c9302b7-fe4b-46d1-9c86-5b7721f25946
      ID-2: /dev/sda2 size: 48.83 GiB fs: ext4 label: N/A
        uuid: bdd0b6cf-b7c5-4241-83c3-11c3af047293
      ID-3: /dev/sda3 size: 3.9 GiB fs: swap label: N/A
        uuid: bd23167b-b056-407b-bfdd-a317533f5a2e
      ID-4: /dev/sda4 size: 5 MiB fs: exfat label: N/A uuid: 7B9B-F86D
      ID-5: /dev/sdb1 size: 1.4 GiB fs: iso9660
      ID-6: /dev/sdb2 size: 4.1 MiB fs: vfat label: EFI-LIVE uuid: 7249-CF0E
    USB:
      Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 8 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
        chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900
      Device-1: 1-1:2 info: Kingston DataTraveler Elite G2 type: Mass Storage
        driver: usb-storage interfaces: 1 rev: 2.1 speed: 480 Mb/s power: 300mA
        chip-ID: 0951:16d5 class-ID: 0806 serial: <filter>
      Device-2: 1-4:4 info: Apple Built-in iSight (no firmware loaded)
        type: <vendor specific> driver: N/A interfaces: 1 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
        power: 100mA chip-ID: 05ac:8300 class-ID: ff00
      Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1
        speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900
      Hub-3: 3-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1
        speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900
      Device-1: 3-1:2 info: Apple Aluminium Keyboard (ANSI) type: Keyboard,HID
        driver: apple,usbhid interfaces: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 1.5 Mb/s power: 20mA
        chip-ID: 05ac:024f class-ID: 0300
      Hub-4: 4-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1
        speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900
      Device-1: 4-1:2 info: Logitech Cordless Mouse Receiver type: Mouse,HID
        driver: hid-generic,usbhid interfaces: 2 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s
        power: 98mA chip-ID: 046d:c537 class-ID: 0300
      Hub-5: 5-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1
        speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900
      Device-1: 5-1:4 info: Apple Bluetooth HCI type: Bluetooth driver: btusb
        interfaces: 3 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 05ac:8206 class-ID: fe01
      Device-2: 5-2:3 info: Apple Built-in IR Receiver type: HID
        driver: appleir,usbhid interfaces: 1 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s power: 100mA
        chip-ID: 05ac:8240 class-ID: 0300
    Sensors:
      System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0 C mobo: N/A
      Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 905
    Repos:
      Packages: apt: 1571
      Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list
        1: deb http://la.mxrepo.com/antix/bullseye bullseye main nosystemd nonfree
      Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bullseye-backports.list
        1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free
      Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
        1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
      Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
        1: deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib non-free
        2: deb http://security.debian.org/ bullseye-security main contrib non-free
      No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list
    Info:
      Processes: 146 Uptime: 1h 49m wakeups: 1 Init: SysVinit v: 2.96 runlevel: 5
      default: 5 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 alt: 10 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.4
      running-in: roxterm inxi: 3.3.19

Unfortunately, I am having new troubles actually installing antiX to this hard drive… After fiddling with the partition table a bit, I did get the GUI installer to complete successfully (I did get some warnings about the hard drive…). But on reboot after install, I’m kicked in to a CLI (no GUI desktop).
I edited to GRUB parameters to match my live USB stick parameters I used (“nosplash failsafe disable=lxF”), but no change.

I consider 1 Gb of RAM as the bare mininum to use the modern web in antiX- you’ll have to be very careful with RAM usage

Yeah, despite all this work, this machine is very slow — almost unusable. I’m considering using ShredOS to just shred it and landfill it, especially if I can’t get antiX actually installed on the hard drive… But this was a fun project. And if this thread can help others rescue their old Mac(s), all the better!

• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by impassable-highchair93.
• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by impassable-highchair93.

[Member madibi]

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Dear impassable-highchair93,
many thx for sharing your info about installing antiX on your iMac.

So far I’ve installed antiX on 2 Macbook Pro (32 bit – 2007 and 64 bit – 2008) and one iMac from 2013.

I had issues only with the 32 bit one, mainly due for screen settings.

With the others 2 Mac(s) antiX worked with no problems.

Please remember about heating possible issues with linux on a Mac. You can use “macfanctld” or “psensor” to monitor temp.

In case you miss the Mac Os look, you can search the 2 different threads titled “How to make antix look like Macos”

Good luck 🙂
m

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/405913/newly-installed-debian-stuck-on-loading-on-macbook-pro-core-2-duo-2-16

Open source radeon driver seems to be the ticket. But.

And here I thought my chromebook install was crazy
https://blog.nanax.fr/post/2018-05-01-chromebook-linux/

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Member PPC]

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PPC wrote:

this machine is very slow — almost unusable.

If you haven’t already, you can try installing the 32bits version of antiX – it runs a tiny bit lighter than the 32bits version. Also, in case you were trying to use a web browser, Firefox-esr (the default browser on the 64bits full version) is too heavy for very old devices. Try installing seamonkey (based on an older version of Firefox- much lighter, but has some incompatibilities with some web sites). When using very old devices, you do have to know the right software to make the best of the resources you have.
You can also try enabling zram: antiX Terminal >

sudo zram start

That may help with such low RAM.

I have a 32bits laptop, with 1Gb of RAM, that I use to write (with OpenOffice.org’s 32bits Appimage, available here in the forum), seamonkey for light web browsing, seamonkey mail, to access Gmail and Xine Media Player to view hd videos (it works wonders on some old hardware, if you are lucky) , smtube to stream YouTube.
But, even so, it’s not a fast machine- it’s completely usable- it runs faster than some Windows computers I saw in an office… that were some 10 years younger than my old laptop…
With very old devices, you do have to manage your expectations – even antiX does have it’s limits- but I never saw a computer with antiX installed that I find it’s too slow to use- my “worst” machine, my netbook, it’s a 64bits single core Atom CPU with 1 gb of shared RAM- I used it, with antiX 64bits, as my replacement desktop (connected to a monitor, mouse and keyboard)- I noticed it was slow, but not slow enough that I was not able to work with it.

PS: My netbook has an HD so slow that antiX ran noticeably faster Live, from an USB thumb-drive, than it runs installed… You may want to try that out too- with antiX 32bits…

If you find it unusable, if you can, slap antiX 32bits on it and give it away to a charity… it’s a better use than a landfill, I guess. I always use my computers until they die on me, so I never had to give one away.

P.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by PPC.

[Member impassable-highchair93]

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Thanks for the encouragement to tweak a bit more. While I have yet to get antiX installed on this Mac desktop, I do have it installed on a 2008 MacBook with similar specs (a bit more RAM though). I’m applying these suggestions there for now.

“sudo zram start” seems to reduce load by about 80 MB, which is great. I’m going to try adding that line to ~/desktop-session/startup (hope that’s the right place…)

Also, I tried SeaMonkey but couldn’t getwebpages to play audio. Rather than wrestle with Pulse audio, I just tried Pale Moon instead and it works (and is about 90 Mb lighter than Firefox ESR when watching a YouTube video).

Now when I use Minimal-IceWM, with terminal open, running free -m I get 131MB used. If I play a YouTube video in Pale Moon, it bumps up to 485MB. Not bad!

I might write up a blog post along the lines of “Installing antiX on old Mac hardware”, with a section on these RAM-saving tips. (Any more appreciated.)

• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by impassable-highchair93.
• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by impassable-highchair93.

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