Author Topic: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?  (Read 34037 times)

holch

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #15 on: September 08, 2011, 03:06:53 am »
Hi!

Finally my HP Proliant Microserver n36l arrived and I took advantage of the national holiday here and tried to install Zentyal 2.0.4 on it with the method described above, but I was not successful.

Unfortunately Step 6 ("6. Alt-F2 to another terminal") doesn't work for me. With Alt-F2 nothing happened.

Without this I can't proceed. So I thought I'll just install Ubuntu 11.04 desktop, which I know would work from the USB stick and the installation worked like a charme. I only read later, that Zentyal under Ubuntu 11.04 isn't really recommended and is lacking the webinterface. So there we go. So my install was basically useless.

I see a few options right now:
  • Install a cd/dvd drive. But I don't really see why I should install a cd drive, just for installation
  • Install 10.04 LTS and then the Zentyal packages, but as I understood it is missing the interface then as well
  • Find a way to get around the problem with the non existent cd-rom drive.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks in advance.


Sam Graf

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #16 on: September 08, 2011, 03:19:09 am »
Hello!

I suggest you try the Zentyal 2.2 RC2 download, to see if it installs correctly. The developers hope to have addressed problems installing from USB sticks in that release.

If that works, 2.2 final is scheduled for release on the 14th.

holch

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #17 on: September 08, 2011, 03:36:59 am »
Hi Sam Graf,

Thank you for the quick reply. So if the release is so close, I might actually risk it. Until everything is setup and running, the release is out anyway. I'll check if the problem with the USB install are solved.


christian

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #18 on: September 08, 2011, 07:08:29 am »
I did install 2.2 rc2 using USB key and it worked smoothly.

holch

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #19 on: September 17, 2011, 04:12:54 pm »
Hi Christian,

How did you do that? I just tried it, and I run basically into the same problems as for 2.1. Zentyal wants a CD/DVD drive to install, but I don't have one.

It would be great if you could give me a hint! I get to the point where it asks for the CDdrive to install from and as I have none, that's it basically. I thought they fixed that. Maybe I did something wrong in the preparation of the USB stick?

But I don't think so. I installed the final release actually. Or at least tried. ;-)

holch

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #20 on: September 17, 2011, 04:51:44 pm »
I followed the steps describing the installation from USB, but I always get stuck when pointing the CD-Rom manually, because I am not presented with this option.

What I also don't get is why I need to have the Iso on the stick again, after making it bootable with Zentyal. Because with the desktop version of Ubuntu 11.04 I could just make the stick bootable with this ISO and it would install directly. Well, seems like Zentyal is not (yet) for me.

Have to see if I can improvise with 11.04 I guess.

Sam Graf

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #21 on: September 17, 2011, 05:06:16 pm »
They did think USB installations were fixed, but maybe not? Our servers all have optical drives and so I have limited experience with typical USB installations. In those few cases where I've done it, I used the stock Ubuntu 10.04 desktop tool and it worked.

Maybe it would be worth filing a bug report, so that the developers could take another look at the problem?

holch

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #22 on: September 17, 2011, 05:26:20 pm »
Well, at the moment I am not sure if I am doing something wrong or not. Because if it is my mistake or lack of knowledge it might not be a bug.

I put the USB stick in, fire up the installation routine and then it complains that it can't find my cd-rom drive. I also expected that this requirement for the cd-rom would be gone, but it seems it is not. As I said, installing 11.04 worked just fine, but ...

Sam Graf

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #23 on: September 17, 2011, 05:36:53 pm »
I understand. I'm also reluctant to file bug reports because more often than not, I'm the bug. :-[

So the basic steps are, 1) download the Zentyal 2.2 ISO and then 2) use a tool/platform of your choice to make a bootable USB stick. There are various utilities for doing this under Windows, but I've just found it easiest to use the stock tools in Ubuntu. From what I'm reading, this is what you're doing. Even if it turned out to be something unusual in your process, that would be valuable knowledge for the community to have, so don't absolutely rule out the idea of submitting a bug report.

If you find out that you have no choice but to install Ubuntu separately, I suggest you use only the officially supported 10.04 LTS release. Using regular Ubuntu releases isn't supported and may not work properly post installation.

holch

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #24 on: September 17, 2011, 05:49:53 pm »
Hi Sam, thanks for your responses.

I don't rule the out the bug report. But I will wait to see if there is an response from Christian, who said he managed to install from USB key without problems. Maybe I can find out what I am doing wrong.

yeah, I am using the 2.2 Iso and create a bootable usb key with UNetBootin. I tried to follow this tutorial http://trac.zentyal.org/wiki/Documentation/Community/HowTo/InstallationFromUSB, but  the installation routine already is different to that.

First it searches for the files, than it says it can find them. Fine. If I click yes to repeat it will never end, so I go for no and get to a screen with various options and I go for the cd-rom again. There I can choose to look on removable devices, but nothing happens. It goes straight back to the screen where it says that it fails to find the cd-rom.

I can't give the path manually.

And I learned it the hard way that Zentyal doesn't work with 11.04. I had Ubuntu it up and running but then noticed that it won't work properly...

But at least I saw that Ubuntu 11.04 is working... ;-)

christian

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #25 on: September 17, 2011, 05:56:20 pm »
Holch, I can't help because I just generate my USB key using Ubuntu "startup disk creator" and then installed without any single problem. So, no tips and tricks  :-[
If this doesn't work for you, you should start looking at the way your USB key is defined and see in BIOS.

holch

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #26 on: September 17, 2011, 06:09:59 pm »
Well, the thing is the USB key is working. Otherwise I couldn't start installation I guess. What is weired is when tell Zentyal to search for an ISO on a removable disk, it just goes back to the screen where it says: couldn't find the files on the cd-rom, blablabla. Of course you couldn't find it, stupid! there is no Cd rom... ;-)

Somehow it seems like it isn't looking for alternative media at all. However, I'll try the RC now. Because it worked for you with the RC, it didn't work for me with the release.

Maybe I also try to use the "startup disk creator" from Ubuntu. Thanks for the response anyway.

holch

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #27 on: September 17, 2011, 06:56:48 pm »
Same problem with the RC. I'll try another trick now. Let's see if it works.

nalare

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dd command?
« Reply #28 on: September 17, 2011, 07:38:49 pm »
I dont know if this can help you, but with the dd command you can make even any iso image boot from an usb without using any other external app. I've used it with dozens of linux distros (and BSDs and solaris ISOs) and this makes the usb thumb drive "becomes" an iso CD or DVD, at least my PCs dont see any difference before, during or after the installation procces. You can use this command from every unix system, of course linux flavours included


          dd if=<route to zentyal.iso> of=/dev/<device node of the usb stick>


PD: I've just tested it, booted and installed zentyal inside a virtual machine using this method: no difference when using an install CD
« Last Edit: September 17, 2011, 07:41:30 pm by nalare »

holch

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Re: Zentyal on a Bootable USB Thumb Drive?
« Reply #29 on: September 17, 2011, 07:56:39 pm »
My problem is, that Zentyal always wants a CD-Rom during the install process, because it is looking for some files on the CD. But my Microserver doesn't have a CD drive. So I am desperatly trying to install things via USB. In the tutorial it says there is a way to tell Zentyal the path to the cd-rom so you could send it to the USB, but this option doesn't exist for me. That is my main problem.