Some OSTree troubleshooting

Note: running on Debian

Because of Debian using a more modular kernel build, you can hit many problems interacting with dracut.

Problem: It says I am likely using GRUB2, what should I do?

Copy ostree/src/ostree/grub2/15_ostree to /etc/grub.d/ or whatever your distro uses. Mark 15_ostree as executable. Run update-grub ("grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg" for Fedora) or, then again, whatever your distro uses to trigger GRUB2 updates.

Problem: Hard drive/partitions not recognised

Edit /ostree/current/etc/dracut.conf and make sure that sd_mod and ata_piix are in the initramfs:

add_drivers+="sd_mod ata_piix"

And that you are preloading them in your GRUB2 line (/boot/grub/grub.cfg):

linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-3-686-pae root=/dev/sda6 ro ostree=current rd.driver.pre=ata_piix,sd_mod

Problem: USB keyboard is not working on first boot's "Enter a username"

Make sure the right hid module is included in initramfs:

add_drivers+="hid_apple hid_generic applesmc appletouch hid usbhid usbcore uhci_hcd evdev ehci_hcd"

And that you are preloading them in your GRUB2 line:

linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-3-686-pae root=/dev/sda6 ro ostree=current rd.driver.pre=ata_piix,sd_mod,uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd,usbhid,hid,hid_apple,applesmc

In my case, a MacBook 2008, I need to load all the main USB system to get my keyboard to work. Just hid-apple is not enough.

Problem: boot fails, no idea why

Remove the "quiet" keyword from the GRUB2 line, and pay attention to failures on hard drives or keyboard.

Problem: what's the password of "Linux User"?

Not really intuitive, but it is the password you set for the new user on first boot!

Qemu on openSUSE

Build testing with a qemu disk image is similar to the procedure for Fedora (note the "su -" login instead of "su"):

$ su -
# cd /ostree
# ostree pull --repo=repo --related gnome
# ostree admin deploy trees/gnomeos-3.8-x86_64-devel
# ostbuild privhelper-deploy-qemu --rootdir=/ostree /ostree/repo trees/gnomeos-3.8-x86_64-devel
# qemu-kvm -vga vmware -cpu core2duo -M pc-0.15 -kernel /boot/vmlinuz-$(uname -r) -initrd /boot/initramfs-ostree-$(uname -r).img -hda ostree-qemu.img -m 1024M -vga vmware -append 'rd.plymouth=0 root=/dev/sda ostree=current ' -monitor stdio

Problem: "Could not initialize SDL(No available video device) - exiting"

Locate the line in /etc/sudoers beginning like this:

Defaults env_keep = "LANG LC_ADDRESS ...

...and add DISPLAY and XAUTHORITY inside the quotation marks.