another 2.2.6 report (sparc)

[Eric Delaunay <delaunay@lix.polytechnique.fr>]

Package: boot-floppies
Version: 2.2.6
Date: 2000-02-04
Architecture: sparc
Configuration: SparcClassic, 24MB RAM, 1GB HD, CG3 display.

Hello Ben & all other ones who work on boot-floopies,
I'm sorry I have nearly no time to work on boot-floppies at the moment (to much
work at my office).  But I have had some hours to spend on yesterday though.
Here is my little work...

  I tried to install the latest 2.2.6 snapshot for sparc and did some
compile/trial from 2000-02-11 CVS snapshot.

Problems I can report so far (1a & 2c are sparc specific, 2[abd] are for all
arches):

1. sun4cdm kernel + nfsroot:
   a. console display is really slow and shows lot of oopses while running
      rcS.
      Mounting /proc: done.
      Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address ffde0000
      ...
      Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference
      ...
      I tracked down this problem and it comes from all tries to open and write
      to all other ttys than the first (problem related to 1.b) :(((

   b. no virtual consoles available (ALT-F2 / ALT-F3 do not switch to them).

   c. the screen goes black after some minutes even if I type keyboard and does
      not reactivate until next reboot.
      (might be bad interaction between console & screensaver timer ?)

  => I rebuilt a kernel replacing 12x22 font with the 8x16:
     now console display is really fast and virtual consoles are again actives.
     It appears the kernel is buggy when displaying with 12x22 font (on cg3 at
     least).
     Ben, could you revert back to 8x16 for your next upload?

2. dbootstrap:
   a. cursor is one line up from active bar in listboxes.
      On serial boot, since active bar is not displayed (or is displayed as
      background color), it's a real pain to select a menu item.

  => I tracked down this bug and discovered it is in newt.
     I filed a bug report with patch so I hope it will be fixed really soon.

   b. infinite loop while installing kernel & modules from http (exactly in
      fdisk_find_partition_by_mntpoint).

  => due to a call to mounted_reread() in is_nfs_partition() without
     reinitialising mounted_partitions to NULL (normally done by fdisk_init
     called from fdisk_reread).

     My next mail post the patch to apply to boot-floppies.  I cannot do it
     myself because my internet connection is restricted to email till monday
     evening.

  c. cannot go further after kernel & modules installed

  => due to subarchive modconf.tgz in sun4cdm/drivers.tgz that is missing
     important files like usr/share/modconf...
     Worked after I replaced it with my own built.

  d. port value in "select server to download from" reverts to default (8080)
     between dialog box invocations.  Could be nice to keep previous user
     entry.

Ok, after some tweaking, I was able to complete the dbootstrap installation
process, but not the base system installation:  I got the following messages at
reboot on the local disk:

sh: dhcpcd-sv: command not found
/var/lib/dpkg/info/base-config.config: /tmp/keybd_settings:: No such file or directory
and keyboard is complety messed up (for example: root -> pyyf).

Well, I don't have time to go further now (no more spare time for few days,
sorry).  Hope it helps.

Regards.

--
 Eric Delaunay                 | S'il n'y a pas de solution, c'est qu'il n'y
 delaunay@lix.polytechnique.fr | a pas de problème.   Devise Shadok.