Re: Fwd: Call for Debian Installer testing, before D-I Beta1 release

[Oystein Viggen <oysteivi@tihlde.org>]

* [Rod Whitby] 

> See the last two sections on this page:
>
>  http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Debian/BuildImage
>
> for how to do this.

Using a slightly modified version of the script on this page and the
2008-02-09 build of the armel installer[1], I was able to successfully
install Debian Unstable using Martin Michlmayr's instructions[2].

The modifications I made to the script from the wiki was:

* Comment out the dkpg-deb line for unpacking nic-modules, as the
  package was already included in the D-I image.

* Change the kernel version in the depmod call.
  (I suppose I could have commented out the depmod call, as it's
  probably no longer necessary due to the modification above).


I diverged from Martin's instructions only in one point, as I selected
"ext3-modules" in addition to the documented partman-auto, partman-ext3
and usb-storage-modules.


As is apparently a known "feature" of the 2.6.24-2 version of the kernel
package, the network driver did not autoload at boot.  I fixed this by
putting the USB drive into a different computer and adding "ixp4xx_eth"
to /etc/modules.  I understand this happens automatically in later
versions of the kernel package.


Unless I should suddenly receive a "Cease and Desist" letter from Intel,
the modified installer image (microcode included) will be available[3]
for a while so that interested people might save a little time.


I hope this installation report is of use for someone, be that
developers or other curious users like myself :)

Thanks,
Øystein



References:

[1] Found it here:
    http://people.debian.org/~joeyh/d-i/build-logs.html
    (first hit for "google:debian-installer daily armel")

[2] http://www.cyrius.com/debian/nslu2/install.html

[3] http://oysteivi.tihlde.org/di-nslu2-ixp4xx_npe-2008-02-09-microcode.bin
    (If you found this posting in a web search and the date is much
    later than February 2008, do not be surprised if the image is
    removed or the install fails due to changes in the archive).
-- 
ssh -c rot13 otherhost