Hi Jeffrey, On 20/06/16 06:49, Jeffrey Mark Siskind wrote: > I am attempting to install jessie on a Dell Poweredge R815. It has been > running wheezy reliably for years. And running squeeze reliably for years > before that. But no matter what I try it won't install or boot. > > I have tried two ways. > > 1. I attempt a fresh install from a USB dongle. It gets all the way to > installing grub and then fails. > > 2. I do a fresh install of wheezy from a USB dongle. It boots wheezy just > fine. > I do nothing but > > nano /etc/apt/sources.list > (change all instances of wheezy to jessie, save, and exit) > apt-get update > apt-get dist-upgrade > (It upgrades without error. I answer the default to all questions.) > /sbin/reboot > > Then it fails to reboot and goes into the initramfs. I have a picture of > the screen if anybody wishes. > > I can reliably install and run wheezy over and over. I have not been able to > install or boot jessie despite numerous attempts. > > Any suggestions? > > Jeff (http://engineering.purdue.edu/~qobi)
Two things come to mind, one being potential lack of disc space. I think Jessie needs more than Wheezy if you selected the "standard utilities" or whatever it's called (bottom line) when you're asked what to install. I use a "rescue/boot manager" partition for many of my systems, which only function is to chainload one of a few other operating systems. That way I don't have to throw away my old boots before I try the new. Installing Jessie on that 1G partition is only possible if the only thing I select during install is the SSH server. The other thing you may want to have a look at is the output on tty4 (Alt F4), perhaps that reveals why grub is not able to finish. cheers, Jan
