Re: Feedback on installation attempt
>>>>> "Jules" == Jules Bean <jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk> writes:
Jules> [Please cc: me on any replies you want me to see, I'm not on this list]
Jules> I needed to install new machine today, so I thought I'd use the potato
Jules> boot-floppies to try them out. These comments relate to the one marked
Jules> 'current' on my mirror, which contains rescue disks built by joey hess
Jules> on 2000-03-08 (it sez here...)
Jules> In a word, nice!
Good to hear. There's a prerelease 2.2.9 up at:
<URL:http://master.debian.org/~karlheg/Packages/boot-floppies/>
... You may test that if you like. Perhaps we will release
officially this week.
Jules> A few things I noticed:
Jules> I notice it's an fbdev kernel. Is the standard debian one an fbdev
Jules> kernel these days? I'm running a stock kernel on my normal machine,
Jules> but I don't get the pretty beer-drinking pingu...
I think the compact and idepci kernels use vga16fb.
Jules> I see some weird floppy errors just after the rescue disk finishes
Jules> booting, and just before it asks me for the root disk. I don't know
Jules> if I perhaps just had a slightly corrupt disk; anyhow it didn't
Jules> seem to matter.
I think I've seen this also; it happens on one test machine I have,
but not on any of the others. I don't know what causes it. The same
error dump happens to "calc" when running my experimental floppy disk
detection program.
Jules> The only doc I read was the README in the disks-i386 directory,
Jules> possibly I missed some documentation. One thing that might confuse
Jules> new users is NFS installs; I know how to do one, since I've been
Jules> around for a bit, but in particular: when you select 'Install
Jules> Operating System and Modules', one of the choices it gives you is
Jules> NFS. However, as far as I can see, you're only going to be able to
Jules> install these over NFS if you're lucky enough to have a network
Jules> adapter supported by the rescue disk itself. Of course, you can
Jules> select 'floppy' here, and then 'nfs' at the next stage, which is what
Jules> I did.
Since the version you tested was released, some changes have been
made to the choose medium code. It will no longer offer `cdrom'
unless one is detected, won't offer `network' or `nfs' unless there
is a network interface, and won't offer `nfs' unless that's a
supported filesystem type. I also want to do floppy drive detection,
so that fd1 is not offered unless it really exists. I might try
doing that this week. I fear that on some machines that "floppy
drive state dump" you've seen will scribble all over the interface.
Jules> Now, the only bug I encountered: the 'configure device modules'
Jules> doesn't seem to pass parameters correctly to modprobe. I have a
Jules> crappy old NE-2000 compatible in this machine, and I happened to know
Jules> that it was set to 0x360. But typing 'io=0x360' in the dialog box
Jules> didn't do the trick -- the module failed to install. Hitting 'F2' and
Jules> typing 'modprobe ne io=0x360' by hand worked fine, and I was able to
Jules> install.
We need to fix this. I've experienced the same thing. I meant to
get to that this last week but got caught up in other things... I
think that "tausq" (Randolph Chung) is working on it now though.
**** !! This is a release critical bug !! ****
Jules> After I'd remembered not to make that mistake, everything went well,
Jules> except, of course, that when I rebooted it hadn't autoloaded ne.o for
Jules> me, since I did that 'behind it's back' so when the 'after-reboot'
Jules> installer was running [whatever that's called; it's cool anyhow, nice
Jules> work asking about MD5 pws in partic] I had to 'alt-F2' again to
Jules> modprobe it by hand and then return to the installation.
Jules> Having finished the installation, I wasn't quite sure of the
Jules> 'canonical' place to put the 'alias eth0 ne' line. I settled for
Jules> /etc/modutils/ne (already created by the install process -- so it
Jules> *had* noticed my options choice, just not acted on it properly --
Jules> maybe it just forgot to run update-modules?)
Jules> During the installation itself, the following packages look like
Jules> they'd benefit from being debconf-ised (maybe not for 2.2):
Jules> exim
I noticed there is demo debconf code for `exim' in the debconf
example directory. I wonder why the `exim' maintainer has not picked
it up yet?
Jules> One last weird thing... the 'xdm' screen has just come up, saying, as
Jules> it generally does, Debian GNU/Linux (cinnamon). Except that the N is
Jules> in a lighter shade of blue, and drawn twice as high (vertically) with
Jules> the bottom chopped of. Weird.
Jules> Hope some of that is of some use to someone.
I'd really like to have a task package that installs the right X
server, a decent gnome compliant window manager or two, and `gdm'.
It should configure by running XF86Setup or anXious, then configure
`gdm', and finally launch it. When the user logs into `gdm' for the
first time, the default Gnome session ought to work out of the box,
with a working window manager (NOT TWM), menus, and the whole bit.
Logging out and logging back in, they ought to have a working setup
still... I've had it where when I logged out then back in the first
time, the window manager didn't restart. I had to mess around
creating a fake WM to trick it into falling back on the one it
thought it was running but wasn't.
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