Re: Testing woody boot/install process
On 15 Feb 2001, Adam Di Carlo wrote:
> Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net> writes:
>
> > I've been using an evaluation copy of vmware to capture screen shots for
> > the GFDL release of my book, and I though I should share some of my
> > findings.
> >
> > 1. During the kernel boot a large number of error messages streams up the
> > screen, declaring modprobe failures. I saw this on an early version of the
> > last release, so this may just be something that doesn't go away until
> > something else is completed.
>
> Yah, I think maybe its a kernel / modprobe issue. Its annoying. Some
> kernels seem to do it and some don't. I wish someone could track this
> down.
Ah! I think I understand. I was using the compact image, because it was
the only one I could get to download from your web page. (I tried the more
obvious, like the 1.44 images, and never got a complete image file to
download. The download would always quit before the whole image arrived.)
They all use the same root filesystem (well, at least I only get the one
from the main subdirectory) and are built differently. I suspect these may
be the SCSI drivers that are built into the larger images, but compact is
probably built with them as modules and the install file system doesn't
have them.
I saw this last release as well, and while it is annoying, it doesn't
cause installation problems.
>
> > 2. The install process fails to find the virtual ethernet driver in vmware
> > environment. I have the ne2k-pci driver installed on the host machine, so
> > that the vmware inteface will come up correctly, but that seems to not be
> > sufficient. I need to see those "configure network" screens, so I tried to
> > install the driver in the virtual kernel. I didn't really expect this to
> > work, but the error message I got from the install is not what I expected.
> > What is says (see attached .png screen shot) is that the ne2k-pci module
> > could not be found. (this may be related to the modprobe errors above) The
> > module _is_ in /lib/modules/..., so...
>
> As I noted in a different email to you, Dale, I'm pretty sure VMWare
> provides eth0 as a pcnet32 driver, no matter what actual hardware you
> may have.
Yes, with that discussion I think I understand this. Just like they
emulate an ATAPI interface but the hardware is actually SCSI, so the
Ethernet card is emulated as a specific hardare interface. I see the pcnet
driver when I do an lsmod, so this should be a piece of cake when I get
back to it. (I've done a major rewrite of the "styles" in the book, so I'm
behind a day or two getting the rest of the text caught up. Once I get
back to it, the Installation chapter will be all that's left to do, and I
can return to obtaining screen shots again)
>
> > I think the only solution for the networking issue may be to have the
> > install look for the device created by vmware when looking for ethernet
> > devices. We _do_ want to be able to do such an install on vmware, don't
> > we?
>
> Sure. I believe it's currently possible if vmware is setup correctly
> and the driver is loaded.
>
Yep, I think I can make this work now. Thanks for all the help.
Luck,
Dwarf
--
_-_-_-_-_- Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide" _-_-_-_-_-_-
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e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net Tallahassee, FL 32308
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