re1d
May 16th, 2010, 08:20 PM
My System76 Pangolin Performance arrived on Thursday of last week – one day ahead of schedule – so I thought I'd mention some impressions; and also comment on an update issue that caught me, and might catch some others!
The update issue: After you start any new machine and log onto the Internet it's going to download updates and ask to install them. When my new Pangolin did that there were quite a few, so I sat quietly watching the process develop and sort of happily looking over my new machine. Then a dialogue box popped up, wanting to install GRUB – saying something about the hard disk drive having changed since last start (this was the first start!) - and wanting to know where to put GRUB. A list of devices was provided.
Not being quite sure how to proceed, as I hovered over the choices, a tooltip came up with a helpful message: it seemed to recognize that the GRUB reinstall might have caught the user off-guard, and suggested that if you weren't sure which device was your boot device, to install to all of them! It sure sounded like the safe solution, since they suggested it, so after some hesitation I did that. I did get a message saying that GRUB install had failed to /dev/sda2, and also something else (not /dev/sda1) which I took to be the DVD drive – so I didn't worry about them. The rest of the update went normally, and I rebooted.
Almost – on reboot, after POST, all I got was a black screen and blinking curser. A cry for help to Tom Aaron revealed that I should have chosen * /dev/sda1 * – and ONLY that, in spite of the contextual advice. Apparently this had also been a problem for some other users, and is not a System76 issue but comes down from the Ubuntu devs.
Tom offered me assistance in putting it right, but I was extremely busy at work on Friday so couldn't take him up on it; and my attempt to follow a tutorial he linked to didn't work out. So in the end – as it is a brand-new machine – I simply restored it using a new 64-bit image. Tom sent me links to useful info that helped a lot. Everything is fine and the restore didn't take long. I felt kind of noob to have messed up a simple update!
So thought I might mention it in case it catches someone else. Most of you are probably smart enough to know which drive you boot from, though! So try not to laugh. Just hoping this keeps someone else from making the same mistake. Hopefully it's fixed or soon will be.
This is long enough – will put my Pangolin impressions, which are overall very positive, in another post. I should point out that instead of making me feel I'd made a mistake in buying here, this issue reinforced my strong feeling that the excellent and prompt support provided by System76 is unparalleled - and a great reason to consider one of their systems. Thanks, Tom!
The update issue: After you start any new machine and log onto the Internet it's going to download updates and ask to install them. When my new Pangolin did that there were quite a few, so I sat quietly watching the process develop and sort of happily looking over my new machine. Then a dialogue box popped up, wanting to install GRUB – saying something about the hard disk drive having changed since last start (this was the first start!) - and wanting to know where to put GRUB. A list of devices was provided.
Not being quite sure how to proceed, as I hovered over the choices, a tooltip came up with a helpful message: it seemed to recognize that the GRUB reinstall might have caught the user off-guard, and suggested that if you weren't sure which device was your boot device, to install to all of them! It sure sounded like the safe solution, since they suggested it, so after some hesitation I did that. I did get a message saying that GRUB install had failed to /dev/sda2, and also something else (not /dev/sda1) which I took to be the DVD drive – so I didn't worry about them. The rest of the update went normally, and I rebooted.
Almost – on reboot, after POST, all I got was a black screen and blinking curser. A cry for help to Tom Aaron revealed that I should have chosen * /dev/sda1 * – and ONLY that, in spite of the contextual advice. Apparently this had also been a problem for some other users, and is not a System76 issue but comes down from the Ubuntu devs.
Tom offered me assistance in putting it right, but I was extremely busy at work on Friday so couldn't take him up on it; and my attempt to follow a tutorial he linked to didn't work out. So in the end – as it is a brand-new machine – I simply restored it using a new 64-bit image. Tom sent me links to useful info that helped a lot. Everything is fine and the restore didn't take long. I felt kind of noob to have messed up a simple update!
So thought I might mention it in case it catches someone else. Most of you are probably smart enough to know which drive you boot from, though! So try not to laugh. Just hoping this keeps someone else from making the same mistake. Hopefully it's fixed or soon will be.
This is long enough – will put my Pangolin impressions, which are overall very positive, in another post. I should point out that instead of making me feel I'd made a mistake in buying here, this issue reinforced my strong feeling that the excellent and prompt support provided by System76 is unparalleled - and a great reason to consider one of their systems. Thanks, Tom!