potato hard disk install bug
Something like this has been mentioned previously by someone else,
but I haven't seen an official bug number for it, or any subsequent
mentions, so I'll report it here in the hope that it doesn't get
overlooked. I'm not sure whether the error messages I'm getting
refer directly to a bug, or whether they are a result of an
earlier phase failing.
I'm using the Oct 14 materials in http://auric.debian/org/~aph/bf/
in particular the 1.2MB boot floppies and base2_2.tgz.
After problems getting the install script to find the kernel
and drivers (I have them, but they apparently are not found,
even after I create some symlinks which satisfy what the install
script says it wants), I copied the debian kernel to my bootable
hard disk's Slackware partition, rebooted into Slackware, set
up lilo.conf to boot the debian kernel mounting the new debian
partition as root, reran lilo, and rebooted, choosing the debian
installation when lilo ran.
All went well until after the message
Starting internet superserver indetd
Then it said
Template does not contain a template: line at /usr/lib/perl5/Debian/DebConf/Template.pm
line 66 <TEMPLATE_IN> chunk 1371
INIT: Id "1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
At this point I gave up.
Remarks and questions:
Given that I have base2_2.tgz and a compatible set of kernel+drivers,
a working Slackware installation on another partition, and a working knowledge
of lilo, the only reason I started by booting from the floppies is
a suspicion that just untarring base2_2.tgz into an empty partition
is not enough to create a "correct" minimal install, i.e. that
dbootstrap may need to be run to do something that I didn't know
needed to be done. Can anyone give definitive info on this point?
The debian install doc says, under hard disk install, says the
boot floppies are not actually necessary, and that "any other boot method"
can be used. I think the doc needs to be more explicit on this point, and
also on the issue of exactly how much directory structure is necessary
to get the installable files recognized.
I really wanted to install the idepci kernel instead of the larger default
kernel, but the floppy install didn't seem to offer this as an option.
(For the manual install attempt, I used the default kernel just to be on the
safe side.)
I would guess that all of the above indicates that hard-disk installs are so
infrequent that the relevant parts of the install scripts are much less well
debugged than is the case for, e.g., CD installs (I'm only doing this because
I don't have a CD drive), just as 1.2M floppy installs are so infrequent that
no-one (apparently) tried one before potato was released.
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