[Nix-dev] NixOS won't boot anymore in certain generations, don't know why (Stage-1 error)

Thu Jun 4 16:11:23 CEST 2015

Just to append,

the mentioned issue with the redrawing of the terminals is back again.

On 04-06-2015 16:07:14, Matthias Beyer wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I found and solved the issue.
> 
> So first, I checked the kernel versions in my revisions:
> 
>     106 - 3.18.11
>     107 - 3.18.13
>     108 - 3.18.13
>     109 - 3.18.13
>     110 - 3.18.13
>     111 - 3.18.13
>     112 - 3.18.13
> 
> (the latest two were other test builds).
> 
> I guessed that the issue was the kernel ... because nothing else
> changed. There was no channel update and I didn't fiddle around in the
> configuration for the system (at least not in these parts, only
> packages and containers a bit).
> 
> So, I got my local clone of the nixpkgs repo onto the commit which was
> used to build generation 106:
> 
>     2d8cfe76a9e4f05e391d30f1654d45dee5993b8a
> 
> And rebuild the system. This worked. Reboot worked too, so the new
> revision, 113, is now on kernel 3.18.11 again.
> 
> I then tried to change kernel versions to 4.0 and 3.19 (in this order,
> because newer is better), but both failed to build because the ati
> driver can't be build because of _compiler errors_ (seriousely, what
> the hell?)
> 
> So, I'm back on 3.18.11. Unfortunately, I have own patches because I
> have to wait for the channel update. So I re-applied my patches upon
> mentioned commit:
> 
>     gitolite v3.6.2 -> v3.6.3
>     snort: version fix (fixes download error)
>     daq: version fix (fixes download error)
> 
> these are non-published commits.
> 
> ---
> 
> That's it. While I don't have any concerns about my machine, because
> Nix is great and everything and I can boot in old versions of the
> system and fix everything and so on, I really can't consider this as
> great user experience. Debugging the issue was not that complicated
> (despite my little hangover), but unneccessary. I'd really like to see
> this situation improved. And I'd really like to see kernel 4.0 on my
> machine, as I'm waiting for the AMD graphic cards fixes which are in
> 4.0.
> 
> I mean, I build my system from my own clone of nixpkgs. Not the way I
> want to:
> 
>     nix-channel --update
>     nixos-rebuild switch
> 
> which should be used. No, I have to
> 
>     git checkout <commit>
>     nixos-rebuild switch -I nixpkgs=~/my/clone/of/nixpkgs
>     # build fail
>     # try again other commit
> 
> I don't want to blame anyone for this or something, this mail is
> mainly for documenting the issue, but hey, these things really
> shouldn't happen, right?
> 
> So, to close this here and now... I hope I see some of you guys next
> weekend at tuebix in Tübingen, Germany!
> 
> On 04-06-2015 15:06:51, Matthias Beyer wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have a problem with some of my generations.
> > 
> > Today (, after installing chromium, but I don't think this has
> > anything to do with it), I noticed that my xterms got redrawn after
> > switching to them (I'm using i3, so if a window is not shown but I
> > bring it up, a redraw happened).
> > 
> > So, if I switched to a xterm where I executed something like
> > "alsamixer" or "tree /tmp", it got redrawn line by line.
> > 
> > I did not understand why this happened, but I guessed it was some
> > driver problem, where a driver went bad or something. So I decided to
> > reboot.
> > 
> > When rebooting, I booted into my newest generation, which was 109 by
> > this time. But I got an error in stage 1, telling me that my root
> > partition couldn't be mounted as the device did not come up (LUKS
> > encrypted SSD, root on /dev/sda2). It asked me
> > 
> >     "dm_mod" loaded?
> > 
> > So I tried previous generations and had success with 106 (107-109) did
> > not work. I checked my config, and I saw:
> > 
> >     boot.initrd.kernelModules = [ "fbcon" "ext4" "dm_crypt" ];
> > 
> > that "dm_mod" was missing, indeed. So I changed it to:
> > 
> >     boot.initrd.kernelModules = [ "fbcon" "ext4" "dm_mod" "dm_crypt" ];
> > 
> > And rebuild the system, resulting in generation 110. I tried to boot
> > that, but the same error happened.
> > 
> > I'm on kernel 3_18_4, if this matters.
> > 
> > So my problem is, I don't know what went wrong and how to fix it.
> > Unfortunately, I don't know which configuration I build generation 106
> > from (my config is git-tracked). I'd show you the diff of my
> > generation, but well... I don't know which revision it was.
> > 
> > How can I debug this and more important: How can I fix this?
> > 
> > -- 
> > Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
> > Kind regards,
> > Matthias Beyer
> > 
> > Proudly sent with mutt.
> > Happily signed with gnupg.
> 
> 
> 
> > _______________________________________________
> > nix-dev mailing list
> > nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl
> > http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
> 
> 
> -- 
> Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
> Kind regards,
> Matthias Beyer
> 
> Proudly sent with mutt.
> Happily signed with gnupg.

> _______________________________________________
> nix-dev mailing list
> nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl
> http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Kind regards,
Matthias Beyer

Proudly sent with mutt.
Happily signed with gnupg.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 819 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.science.uu.nl/pipermail/nix-dev/attachments/20150604/6bb18711/attachment.bin 