Bug#105621: #105621: boot-floppies: Woody installer failes when pre-loading modules from a floppy

[David Kimdon <dwhedon@debian.org>]

Hi,

I took a look at the current b-f source wrt this bug.

If the the /tmp/mod-save-dir exists (the deleted dir in the bug
report) that indicates that the _("Preload essential modules from a
floppy") step was chosen. 

_("This step is only required if the hard disk controller, on which
you want to install Debian GNU/Linux, is not recognized. In most
cases, you can safely skip this.\n"

If it is the case that the modules were 'required', then deleting
/tmp/mod-save-dir will cause the initrd to not be created.  With no
initrd I would have expected the system to not mount the root
filesystem upon rebooting.  Am I missing something?

Even if the modules weren't actually required there is still the
question of 'not enough space in the mounted initrd'.  What leads you
to believe there was not enough space?  

FWIW, space is calculated in get_ramdisk_size().  Do we need to
increase the 30k fudge factor?:

  size += 30; /* trust no one */

I don't see anything obviously wrong with the code.  Did the machine
run out of RAM?

Thanks,

-David