Invalid partition table! while installing Sparky on encrypted volume

[nephilim1973]

Hi,

yesterday I installed my first Sparky box and it looks very well. Love it. Especially for old hardware.
Now I want to install a Sparky notebook with encrypted volume (single 100 GB Kingston SSD).

The advanced installer seems not suitable for this kind of setup, so I decided to use the normal one.
In the partition manager, I choose:
- new partition table (msdos) on hd0
- MBR on hd0 (and in a second try to / )
- install on entire disk, erase all

After installing and rebooting once, system shows "Invalid partition table!" and system hangs.

If I press "ESC" once, the prompt for the LUKS password on hd0,msdos1 appears.
Because of the fact on using a german keyboard layout, I is difficult to enter special characters on US keyboard layout, but I managed it.

After 20 (!!!) seconds, GRUB boot menu appears and Sparky begins the boot process with errors:

WARNING: Failed to connect to lvmetad. Falling back to device scanning.
Volume group "luks" not found.
Cannot process volume group luks.
WARNING: Failed to conect to lvmetad. Falling back to device scanning.
Volume group "luks" not found.
Cannot process volume group luks.
cryptsetup (luks-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxxxxxx):set up successful
/dev/mapper/luks-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxxxxxx: recovering journal
/dev/mapper/luks-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxxxxxx: clean xxxxx/xxxxx files, xxxxx/xxxx blocks

Then login manager opens and I can log in without problems.

My question: Is this the intended behaviour for a crypted setup?
Is there a "best practice" how to available ? Probably with the advanced installer ?

Many thanks and cheers!
Nephilim

EDIT: I forgot to mention, that using a seperate unencrypted /boot partition results in non encrypted / and SWAP partitions and a non bootable system (researched by booting a live CD).

EDIT2: Following the instructions on

https://sparkylinux.org/forum/index.php/topic,3843.msg9240.html#msg9240
, all settings are correct in the mentioned files already.

[paxmark1]

More info on what version and what DE. 
Sparky4 = Debian Stable = Stretch
Sparky5 =            Testing   Buster

Advanced installer is older and based on remastersys.

New Basic installer is based on Calamares - a lot of Distros are going to it.

When I see the words "lvmetad"  and  "Volume groups" I have to ask = are you also using lvm.  ( I do like lvm)

Via Calamares web site.   Bug page search lvm
https://github.com/calamares/calamares/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+lvm

https://github.com/calamares/calamares/issues/889
January 1    Contributor  abucodonosor

Sorry but is not a bug lvm of any sort is not yet supported..

There is some work in progress for that..

Also I don't think you'll see dm-cache and any kind other complicated setups like
md with lvm , lvm and dm-cache , dm-cache for other arrays etc. any time soon
supported.

Hope is in sight.
Google summer of Code
https://calamares.io/calamares-gsoc/

Caio Jordão Carvalho worked on finishing LVM support on Calamares, which include the following updates:

    Fixed some important LVM bugs, such as crash in revert operation when you got a previously created Volume Group.
    Create new LVM Volume Groups.
    Resize LVM Volume Groups.
    Deactivate LVM Volume Groups.
    Remove LVM Volume Groups.

My belief is that you will have to use the Advanced installer. 
There are a lot of pages out there on lvm and luks - encryption. Red Hat has many great pages on lvm. Others will know more about encryption. 

[nephilim1973]

Hi paxmark1, thanks for replying so fast.

I am using Sparky4 Debian Stable with de_DE.UTF8

When I see the words "lvmetad"  and  "Volume groups" I have to ask = are you also using lvm.  ( I do like lvm)

I do like LVM a lot, too. But in the default installer, you have not the change to choose.
After installation, lvm is NOT installed. So I guess, there is something going wrong in different points.

My belief is that you will have to use the Advanced installer.

I will try Sparky5 with the advanced installer and will report my results.
;)

Thanks for support.
Nephilim

EDIT:
Additionally, I want to mention, that the advanced installer in Sparky4 is not really designed to generate an encrypted installation.

[nephilim1973]

Hi,

Sparky5 Advanced Installer does not offer an option for an encrypted installation.
Gparted is limited in functionallity and does not provide LUKS or any other crypted FS. :-(

With the default installer, Sparky5 behaves like Sparky4 :-(

It would be possible to work around these problems in a side by side terminal setup.
But IMHO this is no option for non-advanced users with security claims.

:'(