Jurij Smakov wrote:
Hi,
Brandon Mercer wrote:
Ok, I was able to get the 3.0rc2 iso to install on my V100.
Can you specify exactly were you've downloaded this image from? RC2
is the currently "released" version of the debian-installer for
sarge, while 3.0 is the woody version (sarge is 3.1), so I am a bit
confused.
http://ftp.au.debian.org/pub/debian-cd/images/3.0_r2/sparc/debian-30r2-sparc-binary-1.iso
And what you just said doesn't make any sense. First off I'd like to
state that debian is about the most disorganized
distro/website/documentation mess I've ever seen. if you read this
web page:
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ it tells you:
*If you just need an installation that works*, we recommend you use
the rc2 release of the installer, after checking its errata
<http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/errata>. The following
images are available for rc2:
Now, if you click the like:
http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimage-testing/sarge_d-i/sparc/rc2/sarge-sparc-netinst.iso
you can see very clearly that the image comes from cdimage-testing
which DOES NOT USE the rc2 installer. I know because I've tried this
image and it FAILS EVERY TIME. I don't understand why they recommend
rc2 if you need an installer that works if that's what they're already
using. (yes, I KNOW that this installer installs testing, but it
doesn't make sense because testing doesn't use the rc2 installer. My
feeling is that you should be testing ALL of the testing release).
[skip]
No... but does this flag affect how the machine will behave after
the first reboot when it starts setting up the Timezones and
stuff... let me know cause this could be it. Thanks
Brandon
This flag (ide=nodma) turns off the direct memory access for IDE,
which can drop the disk performance quite dramatically.
Unfortunately, it seems like V100 is using the infamous CMD64x IDE
chipset, which is known to be buggy as hell :-(. The options which I
would recommend trying are the 2.6 kernel, which seems to handle this
chipset somewhat better. You can boot d-i with 2.6 kernel by using a
2.6 RC2 netboot image from [0]. If you'll manage to complete an
install, it would be valuable if you could make the installer logs
(stored in /var/log/debian-installer on the newly installed system)
available somewhere, and fill out an installation report (see [1] for
instructions).
Ok, now about the installation. When I first booted the WOODY 3.0rc2
installation CD ISO IMAGE I did at the prompt:
linux ide=nodma
And after the initial reboot I did the same thing. This tells me that
this buggy chipset is still buggy HOWEVER... my openbsd 3.6 didn't
have ANY trouble getting itself installed so you developers CAN MAKE
THIS BETTER!
After the install I chose NOT to update silo when I upgraded to stable
and I added the ide=nodma to the silo.conf file.
[0]
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-sparc/rc2/images/sparc64/netboot/2.6/boot.img
[1] http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/report-template
Really, honestly, for as upset as I sound in this email I'm very
thankful for your help, and having debian to work with. My
frustration comes from the disorganization of this stuff. I will
devote some efforts to helping other people figure out how to do what
I'm doing and that is run a great, stable linux distro on sun hardware
so they can kick butt on the web too. I will also do the
report-template thingy so you guys have something to work with. Just
so you konw I will have approximately 20 sun V100's running this so I
will be more than happy to help you developers to get bugs knocked
out. Thanks so much for your help,
Brandon