quick install report from Windows

[Adam Di Carlo <adam@onshore-devel.com>]

I just did a test installation from Windows.

Copied a subset of files to my local DOS drivers, basically the
contents of the directory:

  c:\debian\{compact,dosutils}
  c:\debian\images-1.44\compact

Installed up to the point of installing base.  Tried a number of
different alternatives, including install of kernel/modules from local
disk and installing base via NFS (though I didn't have basedebs.tgz).

Problems:

- failure is ugly when the system is not able to unmount /instmnt.
  This condition should be captured and reported properly.  To
  reproduce this, just cd to /instmnt in tty2 and do stuff

- in choose_archive_dir, we used to skip the "choose a dir" prompt
  when we were able to guess and locate a resonable looking top-level
  (or under the prefix) dir.  This seems to be gone.

- likewise, someone needs to check that installing with a stock CD-ROm
  works as well as it should.
 
- the whole interaction between choose_archive_dir and the mountpoint
  is still extremely awkward.  It just doesn't work like it should.  I
  was just playing around with the harddisk option and things just
  weren't working right.  Sometimes it would feed me /instmnt and
  sometimes it wouldn't.  I'll have to play around more to have more
  specific details.

Anyhow, with a little patience, I was able to get this far without
serious problems.  I don't really know what to make of the report the
user gave the install from DOS wasn't working.  That part seems to be
working fine.

-- 
...Adam Di Carlo..<adam@onshore-devel.com>...<URL:http://www.onshored.com/>