Problem installing server kernel

[Gavin McCullagh]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008, Butch Arias wrote:

> After installation (including the add-on cd) , the computer SERVER works
> with a GUI -  but the problem is that the thin clients do not have the
> GUI.  

How many thin clients is this a problem on?  All of them?  When you say the
GUI doesn't work, what do you actually see?  Is it a plain text login
prompt or something else?

> The LTSP works, the fact that the thin clients boot. This is
> surprising, the server may not need the GUI but the students in their
> thin clients need the GUI. Did I miss something in the installation? How
> do I configure the thin clients to have a GUI? The GUI appears in the
> thin clients of both  7.04 and 7.10, so I think the thin clients should
> also work with the 8.04.

Can you send us a copy of the file:

	/opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf

so we can see what your LTSP settings are.

Something you could try would be a rebuild of the LTSP image:

	sudo ltsp-build-client

> We expect to have over 40 thin clients (our target is 48) connected to
> the server and I believe I need more than 4 GB or usable RAM. Using the
> generic linux kernel, the computer recognizes only 3.5GB RAM but with 8GB
> installed.  

You need to install the -server kernel to get > 4GB RAM on a 32-bit system.
The 64-bit kernels would all support this, but there are other difficulties
with the 64-bit (eg flash will be a problem).

	sudo apt-get install linux-image-server

> Interestingly, the swap file is 9+ GB or almost 10GB which
> means the installation may have recognised the 8GB (is it mem
> size=default swap file?). Up to this point, the generic-flavor works
> well. The problem starts after installing the server-kernel:  every time
> the server kernel is installed, the whole thing freezes during the boot
> process and the OS needs to be re-installed again.

Can you not just reboot and choose the generic kernel rather than
reinstalling when this happens?  What errors do you get when the freeze
happens?  If you could try rebooting, we can debug a little:

1. After the BIOS you should get a short GRUB countdown.  You can press
   escape at this point to get into grub (this will also allow you to
   choose the -generic kernel).
2. In the menu, select the -server kernel and press 'e'
3. You will see four options for this kernel. Move down to the "kernel"
   line and press 'e'.  
4. You will be able to edit these kernel options now.  Remove "quiet" and
   "splash".  Press return.
5. Press 'b'

This will boot the server kernel with full debug output.  If you can watch
it and then tell us what errors you get around the crash time, we may be
able to work out your problem.

> tried waiting for more than three hours and server was still booting-up.
> By the way, the server kernel I used is the one found in the server cd of
> 8.04, because I could not locate the server flavor neither in the
> alternate installation cd nor in the add-on cd. Should I use this, or
> should I use another kernel - direct from the internet?

I would suggest you get the machine online with the working kernel and
update the available packages.  There have been a number of fixes to the
kernel since hardy was released.  You should use the latest (which won't be
on the CD).

Gavin