Bug#57095: Still a problem: Bug #55398
On Mon, Feb 07, 2000 at 12:25:41PM -0500, Adam Di Carlo was heard to say:
> You use the 'harddisk' option rather than the 'mounted' option when
> asked for install media.
Well, if you've already mounted the partition that your floppy images are
on, you don't have much choice.
> >So, I did it like this:
> >1) activate swap
> >2) select root partition (where I want to install TO)
> >3) mount another partition (my SuSE partition, on which the
> >install files are located). So, I had to mount it somewhere;
> >/usr wouldn't, of course, be a good idea for this.
> >I chose /mnt.
> >4) When installing kernel/base system, I selected "from already mounted
> >partition"; the file selector started as "/debian". This directory
> >can never exist; the root is the floppy root, which has no /debian
> >subdirectory,
> >and all partitions I mounted after the first on (step 2 resp. step 3)
> >are mounted under /target (so, it could be /target/debian). The bug here
> >is that the browse button does not work since /debian doesn't (and
> >can't) exist;
>
> Um, just replace '/debian' with something else, and then
> browse..... for instance, you could replace it with '/' and browse
> your whole system.
>
> To say it "can't" exist is just wrong. On tty2 you can make and mount
> and do whatever you want.
Well, yes, but it would be nice to have a reasonable default. Dropping to
the shell should really be a last resort.
> > it is called "target/something",
> >which is not the root directory of the soon-to-be debian system
> >but the already existing FAT/ext2 partition where my base.tgz I want to
> >install from is located.
>
> I don't think it's a good idea to set your mountpoint for you install
> media (where you are installing *from*) to be your target system
> (where you are installing *to*).
>
> I suggest you use the 'harddisk' rather than 'mounted' install media.
Is the 'mount another partition' screen only meant to be used for partitions
that are part of the new Debian system? I regularly use it to add existing DOS
and Windows partitions to the fstab. Probably its descriptive message should
be clarified if you don't want people using it for general partitions (and
another mechanism for adding the partitions of other operating systems to
the fstab should be included; yes, you can do it by hand, but you could bring
the whole system up by hand to..the point of boot floppies is to automate this
process, and I think that a large proportion of Debian users probably mounts
some other operating system somewhere by default)
Daniel
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