Hardware migration issue at boot

[gatorgrabber]

I've been running Unraid on an older Xeon PC for the last couple of years with no real issues and finally decided to upgrade the hardware. I read quite a bit about moving to a different MB, so there was little drama with the migration. What is happening is when I restart the server, Unraid goes thru the lengthy setup process like I saw when it was first installed years ago, right down to asking what interface (command line, GUI, etc.) I would prefer. It never did this with the old box so I'm assuming there's a demon-tweak that I missed somewhere along the line. Once booted up, everything works just like before; smooth as silk. Any suggestion as to what I might need to modify? I'm hesitant to go rummaging around in the OS without adult supervision...that never ends well! Thanks

Edited November 12, 2019 by gatorgrabber

[itimpi]

Unraid does not have a ‘setup’ process in the sense most other OS have!
 

Every time you boot the system it is unpacked from the archives on the flash drive and loaded into RAM.    At the start of the boot process you are presented with a menu which allows you to select from several options (you can change which one is the default).    Once you have selected an option (or time runs out and the default runs) UnRAID will start loading and various messages are displayed as the hardware is detected.    At the end of that you are presented with either a console login or a web page login.

 

your description sounds like you might just be seeing the standard boot sequence?

[John_M]

Are you talking about the blue boot menu that allows you to choose between normal boot, GUI boot, safe mode and MemTest? That's normal and it appears every time you boot Unraid. Most users run headless once they've done the initial installation and therefore don't see it, but it's very useful when you actually need it.

[gatorgrabber]

Wow, that was quick! Both of you are describing what I'm seeing. So how do I set the default to GUI when I get to the blue screen-not-of-death?

[Hoopster]

17 minutes ago, gatorgrabber said:

Wow, that was quick! Both of you are describing what I'm seeing. So how do I set the default to GUI when I get to the blue screen-not-of-death?

Click on the flash drive on the Main screen in the GUI and scroll down to Syslinux configuration and select the radio button on the option you want to be the default, then apply.  You also can manually edit the syslinux.cfg file on the flash drive and change the default if you wish.

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by Hoopster

[gatorgrabber]

I went to that location and the Unraid os box is already checked. The box is booting to the flash but still defaults to the command line in the blue box. I did notice the text in the area under unraid os (above) is different from what I'm seeing:

 

kernel /bzimage
append initrd=/bzroot

 

Above has 'mitigations=off' after bzroot, if that means anything.

 

 

[Hoopster]

4 minutes ago, gatorgrabber said:

I went to that location and the Unraid os box is already checked. The box is booting to the flash but still defaults to the command line in the blue box. I did notice the text in the area under unraid os (above) is different from what I'm seeing:

 

kernel /bzimage
append initrd=/bzroot

 

Above has 'mitigations=off' after bzroot, if that means anything.

 

 

The mitigation=off is because I am running a plugin that turns off spectre/meltdown security mitigations for performance reasons.  It is not standard and means nothing in your case.

 

The unRAID OS option will boot the server to the command line; that's the default..  Being at the command line doesn't mean you can't access the GUI on your network.

 

If you have a monitor attached to the server and want to see the GUI on that monitor instead of booting to the command line, select the unRAID OS GUI Mode option.

 

Note this only affects what you see on the screen of any monitor attached directly to the server.  You can always access the GUI from any network connected device on your LAN and you can access the command line from the Terminal option in the GUI.

[gatorgrabber]

What do you know, it wasn't borked after all. 😜 I was still looking at it via the attached monitor. Nice call, thanks!