ERRATUM Re: Repeated failure of install of Jessie
On Wednesday 30 March 2016 18:15:30 Lisi Reisz wrote:
> On Wednesday 30 March 2016 17:42:14 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 30, 2016, at 07:21, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > > Yes, I have finally found out. It's a Giga-Byte GA-H110M-S2H.
> >
> > Oho, that tells me a lot.
>
> Thank you so much, Henrique. I am about to go away and am a bit rushed, so
> what you have told me is that I had better not touch it until I get back!
> And perhaps should consider Scratch.
<Hangs head in shame.> Stretch. <stands in corner wearing dunce's cap>
Blame senility and its accompanying aphasia. :-(
Lisi
> Or hold my nose and stay on Ubuntu
> for a bit. I'll deal with it next week and report back.
>
> > First, it tells me your specific motherboard and processor won't work
> > well (as in it will be quite crash-prone) *unless* you updated its
> > "BIOS" (really, UEFI) since about a week ago. Did you?
> >
> > http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5606#bios
>
> No, I haven't updated it. And I am not even going to try and update the
> BIOS while I am feeling rushed and stressed and am very short of time.
>
> > Second, it tells me you have a 6th gen Intel Core processor (aka Intel
> > "Skylake"), which, on top of requiring a very recent BIOS to be stable,
> > also wants a Linux kernel with some very recent fixes... fixes that
> > even the very latest Debian installer kernel is unlikely to have *yet*.
> > The Ubuntu installer has a different kernel than Debian's, so it will
> > behave differently (and from your report, it does *much* better on Intel
> > Skylake-based systems right now).
>
> If I manage to get it on at all, the first thing I shall have to do is
> obviously install a backports kernel!
>
> > BTW, Gigabye is shipping outdated components on that brand new BIOS
> > update for your motherboard (at least the processor microcode is far
> > older than it should be), which isn't a good sign at all. Still, it
> > should be much better than the defective Intel firmware that is inside
> > their next-to-latest BIOS for that motherboard, so, please update your
> > BIOS if you didn't do that already.
> >
> > Do be careful while updating your BIOS, it is the kind of thing you need
> > to get right at the first time. If you don't have a second computer,
> > print out the update instructions and also the "recovery instructions"
> > for when things go wrong. Have whatever is necessary for the recovery
> > procedure prepared ahead of time. Read everything carefully. Find a
> > way to minimize the risk of a power loss during the BIOS update.
> >
> > And get used to it: you bought an Intel Skykale system, you also bought
> > the need for periodic BIOS updates for a while yet... even if it wasn't
> > written like that in the tin ;-)
> >
> > Anyway, after the BIOS update, please give another try at the installer.
> > Hopefully, it will work, but given the outdated microcode inside that
> > latest BIOS update, it might not fix everything that it could/should.
> >
> > If the installer still hangs even after the BIOS update, please try to
> > add the boot parameter: "intel_idle.max_cstate=7". If that doesn't
> > work, try it with "intel_idle.max_cstate=0", which will switch the
> > kernel to a safer -- but a lot less efficient -- idle driver
> > ("acpi_idle"). When using "acpi_idle", the BIOS settings matter a lot
> > more, so you may try changing them too (set the maximum C state in BIOS
> > to 7 as well, or maybe to 3 if that doesn't work).
> >
> > Boot parameters for the installer:
> > https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch05s03.html.en
> > (it is the same for amd64).
> >
> > Also, try both text mode and graphical mode for the installer, much of
> > the kernel issues with Skylake are related to the Intel GPU, so which
> > mode you use might make a difference.
> >
> > Last point: some people experiencing Skylake hangs had to RMA their
> > Intel processor, and it helped some while others did not report any
> > change. But these were "K" processors -- the ones for overclocking. I
> > found no reports of RMAs helping users of non-K processors. I don't
> > think it is your case anyway, because your system behaved much better
> > under Ubuntu, while those who had broken processors had the same hang
> > issues on every O.S they tried, even Windows 10.
> >
> :-(
>
> Thank you so much, Henry. I'll report back if I am still upright and sane
> after all this!!
>
> Lisi
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