Misleading examples in install guide
I came at this roundabout: I was looking for some background on using
debootstrap (1), and that led me, eventually, to the install guide at
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch-preparing.en.html#s-linux-upgrade
On the whole, this was very useful, and I want to thank all of those
who have contributed to this over the years. But one bit is at least
misleading as it stands. The problem is in 3.7.5.1, where an example
of a multi-partition setup is shown. Earlier, there was explicit
instruction to mount *one* partition for installation, and here it
blithely tells you to go ahead and mount the (presumably still empty)
partitions on the chroot's /var, /usr, ...
Having done various sorts of not-from-scratch installations, I had
already mounted all the filesystems before turning debootstrap loose,
but even so you had me scratching my head for a moment, wondering if I
had somehow missed a whole subsection previously or if there was some
magic about remounting the filesystems inside the chroot. (there
didn't seem to be any of the latter: an attempt just produced an error
message about the already-mounted filesystem.)
It's arguable that anyone who is installing to a multi-filesystem setup
should already know enough to sort this out, but in that case it seems
odd to confuse folks with this elaborate setup in 3.7.5.1 - not all of
which can be omitted, of course. I guess it depends on which
audience(s) you want to support directly.
(1) I was messing about with debootstrap because most of the 3.0
installation kernels hung or crashed on the old PPro box I've been
working on. I eventually found that the "vanilla" (2.2.x) kernel
worked, so I was able to get where I wanted to be (running a locally
built 2.4.x kernel) on the small, maintenance partition, but it left me
without an easy way to install the main server system on ext3
partitions... until I was reminded of debootstrap.
--
Show me your flowcharts and conceal your tables, and I shall continue
to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your
flowcharts; they'll be obvious. -- Brooks
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