Installation step failed-Debian 8.6.0 net install in Virtual Box

Question

It seems that other people have seen this error before but I cannot find this exact problem elsewhere on superuser.

I have a Virtual Box VM using 2GB RAM, 20GB VDI, Encrypted LVM and Debian 8.6.0 netinst image. When its installing software (whether on OSX or WIndows host) I finally get "Installation step failed" and have to restart the softare install portion of the OS install. ... But to no avail. I get the same error again!

Any ideas??

Solution 1

I'm a very casual Linux user, so I don't have the knowledge or experience to give a concrete answer. However, I did have this same issue in the last two days. I got around it and it seems to be running fine now.

What I did:

• Go back to the "Detect Disks" step
• Go up and select "Guided partition" again, ignoring the configuration stuff from the previous attempt(s). I wanted to overwrite the partitions because you'll get errors if there are some leftover files from the previous attempt. IMG: Select "Guided Partition"
• Proceed until you get to the "Partition method" step
• Select "Guided - use entire disk" (Note: I previously used the un-encrypted LVM option and got the error, so now we're avoiding that) IMG: Partitioning method
• Proceed until you reach the "Partitioning scheme:" setting
• Select "All files in one partition" (Note: I previously used the separate /home, /var, and /tmp option and got the error)
• Proceed as usual...

I would have to think maybe there's an issue with LVM in the setup process, but again, I don't know for sure. I wouldn't think the partitioning scheme (separate /home /var and /tmp) would mess things up...

Since we're both using VMs, we might as well set up a few more and try a couple different routes.

I hope this helps!

---

My hardware/software setup when attempting this install:

• VM:
  • debian-live-8.6.0-i386-gnome-desktop.iso
  • VirtualBox 5.1.10r112026 (Qt5.6.2)
  • 8GB VDI
  • 4096 MB base memory
  • 2 processors
  • 64MB video memory (no gfx card on host hardware, just the integrated gfx)
• Host:
  • Host Processor: i7-4790k
  • Host Memory: 12GB
  • Host OS: Windows 7

Solution 2

I've encountered the same problem while trying to create a debian VM (using debian-live-8.6.0-amd64-gnome-desktop.iso) on top of VirtualBox VM.

@darkscrap solution does work, although it seems that the only variable that matters is selecting All files in one partition /, for some reason choosing separate partitions for /var, /tmp et /home generates the "Installation step failed" error on virtualbox.

Comments

[chrips]

That worked. I'm dismayed that I can't use separate partitions though... ah well its just a VM. Thanks!

[ahogen]

@Chrips Great! I'm glad it helped! Cheers, man!

[Alexander]

A year later, debian 9.3, VirtualBox 5.2.2 - same problem. Solution works, though