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dave559
Asked: 2020-05-19 08:31:59 +0800 CST

Booting ubuntu-20.04-live-server-amd64.iso on VMware virtual machine fails

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I am trying to install Ubuntu 20.04 on a VMware virtual machine, using ubuntu-20.04-live-server-amd64.iso as the boot image, and installing via VMware Remote Console, but without any success.

When trying to boot, I get the ISOLINUX status line, the (unhelpful) graphical screen with the keyboard and human logos, but then:

Sometimes I get the language selection, can select "English", and then get the list of boot options, but my keypresses seem to be ignored at that point, so cannot proceed further.

On some other occasions, the keyboard/human screen remains for at least a minute, and then eventually the boot process falls back to a text console and displays various errors:

piix4_smbus 0000:00:07.3: SMBus Host Controller not enabled!
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
ln: /tmp/mountroot-fail-hooks.d//scripts/init-premount/lvm2: No such file or directory
mount: mounting /cow on /root/cow failed: No such file or directory
Checking integrity, this may take some time
Connecting to plymouth: Connection refused

The boot process then just seems to hang, seemingly indefinitely (although the progress (or lack thereof) dots continue). It seems that it does not have super cow powers, unfortunately.

It eventually turns out that, after waiting approximately 20 minutes, the lack-of-progress dots come to an end, and then, finally, the text mode installer starts (and can install successfully). I wouldn't regard this as a proper solution, however. I was considering installing a minimal 18.04 and then upgrading from there as a work-around instead.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar or have any advice?

vmware boot 20.04

3 Answers

  1. Just finished installing a bunch of these, and had an error that occured in all due to missing UUIDs of disk being exposed to the VM.

    To fix, I had to

    • open vSphere
    • power down the VM (cannot do this if powered on)
    • edit the VM (Right click, Edit Settings...)
    • go to the VM Options tab from the top
    • open Advanced section
    • Click Edit Configuration in "Configuration parameters"
    • click on "Add configuration params"
    • add option with disk.EnableUUID as name and TRUE as value
    • restart the machine
    • Ok, save etc and restart
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  2. Rather than mounting the .iso to the VM on the console from your machine, upload the .iso as a Content Library Object. Then mount the .iso to the VM you are creating via the newly created CLO. You will still receive the message above of Plymouth: Refused to connect etc., however it will finish its check much more rapidly.

    For me, the check went from 10-15 minutes (or about what you appear to be experiencing) down to ~10 seconds.

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  3. I found this on old version https://whitehatty.com/2012/09/30/vmware-fusion-5-fix-ubuntu-linux-12-04-host-smbus-controller-not-enabled/

    How to fix it:

    sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

    add the line:

    blacklist i2c-piix4

    reboot

    PS. You might also want to try add more ram, CPU and video by

    Got to Settings>System>Motherboard> Base Memory:
Settings>System>Processor> CPU:

    Add Video memory up a bit to see if its help (On server version it won't be needing much I guess.)

    Settings>Display>Screen>Video Memory: try to increase it like 32mb,64mb and so.

    Hope this help

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