Installation of Debian Jessie fails

[ondrej1024]

Hi,

I tried running the installer with a custom installer-config.txt were I specified the Debian jessie release by adding the following line:
release=jessie
But after the installation the RPi doesn't reboot anymore. I see just the coloured image in the screen, no kernel messages.

Same thing happens when upgrading to jessie after successfully installing wheezy.

Did I do something wrong?

Ondrej

[diederikdehaas]

Which version of the installer did you use and on what Pi system (B/B+/2)?
Also, when did you install the wheezy system (and with which installer version) which you tried to upgrade to jessie?

[ondrej1024]

I am using this installer version: raspbian-ua-netinst-v1.0.6.img.xz on a RPi B.
Installation of wheezy works fine, but both upgrade and direct install of jessie gives me the rainbow screen after reboot.

[diederikdehaas]

It looks like you're running into the same problem as reported on #199.
But it's symptoms are not entirely consistent. Earlier today I tried an installation (of wheezy) and that succeeded, but I got a kernel crash (=rainbow) when it rebooted.

[ondrej1024]

I installed wheezy twice today and everything went fine. The problem is only with installing or upgrading to jessie. Here the procedure finishes successful but the RPi gets stuck (rainbow) after reboot. Too bad.

[diederikdehaas]

Ok, thanks. I'll look into it since it may be a different issue.

[Mausy5043]

This makes me suspicious of the current batch of kernels.

[diederikdehaas]

I was able to confirm your finding @ondrej1024
This is what I did:

• xzcat raspbian-ua-netinst-v1.0.6.img.xz > /dev/sdd (sdd = sd card reader/writer)
• put the sd card in my Pi B and booted up
• after the install it automatically rebooted into my wheezy system ... without any problems
• changed wheezy to jessie in /etc/apt/sources.list and did apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade and noticed that there was a newer version of the meta-package linux-image-rpi-rpfv but NO new kernel version
• after the upgrade was done I rebooted ... and got a kernel panic/rainbow

And then I did something to try out:

• pulled the power plug of my Pi B to power it off
• put the sd card in my sd card reader/writer and opened /boot/config.txt and commented out the initramfs ... line (deleting has the same effect)
• removed the sd card from my reader/writer, put it back into my Pi B and powered it up
• watched how the boot process completed SUCCESFULLY 😤

So I have a VERY strong feeling that the initramfs is the problem and likely also with issue #199
So @Mausy5043 and @ondrej1024 can you commented out (place # in front) the initramfs line in /boot/config.txt to see whether that fixes the problem?

[Mausy5043]

@diederikdehaas : tried your suggestion (removing initramfs line from config.txt).
The installer boots and panics.

[diederikdehaas]

Damn, I thought I had found the problem.
Thanks for testing and reporting back 👍

[Mausy5043]

I have three RPis. One B+ and two Bees. Only one of the Bees is presenting this problem. The other Pies are on 3.18-0. Could this be a hardware issue?

[diederikdehaas]

It could be related to hardware, but that would still make it a kernel problem since that's what interacts with it (or at least should do)

[ondrej1024]

Sorry but I didn't have time to test this myself. Will try tomorrow and report back.