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Bug#368711: marked as done (installation report, Sparc32 with Etch debian installer)

Your message dated Tue, 6 Jun 2006 08:01:48 +0200
with message-id <200606060801.49339.elendil@planet.nl>
and subject line Bug#368711: installation report, Sparc32 with Etch debian installer
has caused the attached Bug report to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what I am
talking about this indicates a serious mail system misconfiguration
somewhere.  Please contact me immediately.)

Debian bug tracking system administrator
(administrator, Debian Bugs database)
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: installation-reports

Boot method: netboot
Image version: Etch beta2 from 
http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-sparc/beta2/images/

Date: 2006-05-13

Machine: Sun Sparcstation 10
Processor: 2x SM51
Memory: 160M
Partitions: 1=default small /boot, 2=most of drive as /, 4=143M swap

Output of lspci and lspci -n:
(not applicable to SS10, no PCI)
Unit has TGX video.

Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it

Initial boot worked:    [O]
Configure network HW:   [O]
Config network:         [O]
Detect CD:              [ ]
Load installer modules: [O]
Detect hard drives:     [O]
Partition hard drives:  [O]
Create file systems:    [O]
Mount partitions:       [O]
Install base system:    [E]
Install boot loader:    [E]
Reboot:                 [E]

Comments/Problems:

The installer failed when it tried to download a kernel 2.4.27-3  sparc32 
which did not exist in "testing".  I was operating with the default debconf 
priority which did not get set to low after the crash, so I was not given the 
choice to retry using a specific kernel.

I entered a shell and manually installed a 2.4.27-2 kernel via apt-get.  That 
succeeded.

Exiting the shell and re-entering the installer menu, I could not get it to 
let me configure silo with the kernel I had just installed.  It kept wanting 
to repartition the hard drive.  I got a shell again and did a manual silo 
configure which didn't make a bootable system until I hand-edited a silo.conf 
file.

I tried re-entering the installer by rebooting using priority=low.  That got 
me lots of prompts, but the installer would not let me avoid repartitioning 
and reinstalling, which would have wasted another several hours doing exactly 
the same thing except for the last two steps - kernel and silo.  I tried 
manually making /target and mounting / and /boot there, which let me 
eventually make a working silo.

(This had already been my second attempted install on this hardware on the 
same day.  I had used a netboot installer image that had worked previously on 
an SS20 a couple of months ago.  It took a couple of hours to go almost all 
the way through in downloading and installing, but died when it could not 
find something in the current Etch that it expected, perhaps a kernel.)

Even though my hand-installed 2.4.27-2-sparc32-smp kernel and silo do work, 
the post-reboot configure step that sets up a root password, a user account, 
and task software sets has not run.  I'm not sure how to trigger that.  I 
installed a root password and user account and password, and did accustomed 
apt-get installs to set up an xfce4 desktop.

With two complete downloads and configures taking up much of a day, this was 
the most frustrating Debian install I have experienced, after about 40.  The 
previous sparc32 one a few months ago using Etch went very well as I have 
reported.  This one probably would have succeeded had Etch not contained a 
broken "kernel-image-2.4-sparc32-smp" pseudo-package.  It would have been 
less annoying to recover from that had priority=low been reset after the 
kernel install failure, or if there were a way for the installer to be 
re-entered with a choice to mount /target and /target/boot instead of only 
one to repartition and install again from square one.

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
On Wednesday 24 May 2006 13:53, Steve Pacenka wrote:
> The installer failed when it tried to download a kernel 2.4.27-3 
> sparc32 which did not exist in "testing".  I was operating with the
> default debconf priority which did not get set to low after the crash,
> so I was not given the choice to retry using a specific kernel.

It looks like you hit a moment when "testing" on the mirror you were using 
was inconsistent with regard to kernel packages. Unfortunately that can 
happen, but should not last too long.

> I entered a shell and manually installed a 2.4.27-2 kernel via apt-get.
>  That succeeded.
>
> Exiting the shell and re-entering the installer menu, I could not get
> it to let me configure silo with the kernel I had just installed.  It
> kept wanting to repartition the hard drive.  I got a shell again and
> did a manual silo configure which didn't make a bootable system until I
> hand-edited a silo.conf file.

I'm not sure why that should be. Normally the installer does not go back 
to previously run installation stages.

> It would have been less annoying to recover from that
> had priority=low been reset after the kernel install failure, or if
> there were a way for the installer to be re-entered with a choice to
> mount /target and /target/boot instead of only one to repartition and
> install again from square one.

The installer has a rescue mode that is intended for just such situations.

As your problems were almost certainly temporary mirror problems, I'm 
closing this report.

Thank you for your comments.

Cheers,
FJP

--- End Message ---
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