Subject: installer: "invisible" screens, partitioning step fail

From: George Clemmer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2020 20:51:40 -0400

Hello,

Recently (June 5, 2020) I tried to use the Graphical Installer to
re-install Guix System on a headless server (ASRock MT-C224 mother board
with NVME system disk). I hit two problems:

1) The installer screens were not visible on the VGA port. However TTYs
3-6 worked just fine. With #guix IRC help I discovered that if I ...

  hit ctr-alt-del

  hit "e" when "GRUB LOADING!" appeared ...

  ... when the linux command line appeard, added "nomodeset" between
  "quiet" and "modprob ..."

  ... hit Ctrl-x

the installer screens became visible.

FWIW, VGA on this server is provided by an ASPEED AST2300 "server
management processor".

2) The installer seemed to work until the "Partitioning method" step.
After selecting "Guided - use the entire disk" nothing more happend.

I rebooted and selected "Manual" partitioning and got the same result.

In both cases it was possible to exit the partitioning step and cycle
through previous selections in an "endless loop".

FWIW, I had no problem proceeding with the install manually.

I believe a recent guix-help post also reports this problem ...

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-guix/2020-06/msg00136.html

Happy to provide additional details or recreate the "crime" if needed.

George