Re: Install report

[Jukka Neppius <jkn@iki.fi>]

Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> writes:

> Jukka Neppius wrote:
> > 1. No documents!  The page
> > http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ has a promising link to
> > "The Debian-Installer's INSTALLATION HOWTO".  Unfortunately it does
> > not give anything.
> 
> I think you'll find that link is working now. We're still in the process
> of restoring services after the recent security breach of the Debian
> servers.

I think there should be some kind of README in
dists/sid/main/installer-i386/ with one line explanation of every file
in it and a link to "The Debian-Installer's INSTALLATION HOWTO"


> 
> > 5. An old problem: I usually make a 'small' root partition.
> > (currently it should be about 150 MB, my first Linux computer had
> > total 80 MB disk space.)  This computer had relatively small disk, so
> > I made only / & /usr. I should have made symlinks /var -> /usr/var ...
> > I forget that while trying to configure non existing CD, so I run out
> > of disk space.  Tasksel did hide the error message so I had to use old
> > reliable dselect. It told immediately what is the problem.  Fix was
> > easy.  Perhaps installer could check the size of / and if it is small
> > and not all big partition were made, ask user where /var should be
> > moved (same with /usr, /home, /tmp).
> 
> How exactly did tasksel hide the error message?


I am not sure if I remember this correctly.  I made selections in
tasksel and clicked 'Finish'. Screen flashed and I got selection page
again with nothing selected. I got out of it and started dselect.  I
soon got 'disk full' error.

 
> I don't think that having the installer make symlinks would be very
> good. It would be good if it tried to ensure that the disk sizes were
> sane, but of course different people's definitions of "sane" varies in
> this area.

I agree.  But warning would be nice. Something like: 
You have very small /, /usr, /var, /tmp
1. Fix by making new partitions. 
2. Repeat this test.
3. Proceed anyway.

Hint: for example if your / is too small to contain /var you can:
ALT-F2
mkdir /usr/var      (or if /var is already created 'mv /var /usr/ ')
ln -s /usr/var /var

For installation to succeed / should be big enough for everything
without its own partition.


> > Result was working system. Network and sound drivers were found
> > automatically.
> 
> Good deal, you should fill out the installation report template you'll
> find in /root, and file a proper install report with that template that
> includes the hardware you installed to so we can track it.

I'll do that later.  

- Jukka