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Bug#230440: FWD: Re: INSTALL REPORT with 2004-01-09 netinst, failed



Package: installation-reports
 
 The following installation report was posted to debian-boot, and,
 according to my records, never followed up on. I am putting it in the
 BTS so it will not be lost.

----- Forwarded message from Yann Dirson <ydirson@fr.alcove.com> -----

From: Yann Dirson <ydirson@fr.alcove.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:41:51 +0100
To: debian-boot@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: INSTALL REPORT with 2004-01-09 netinst, failed

As I attempt to do more not-so-uncommon things (with the 2004-01-03
snapshot)...

- I initially have a HD with a single ext3 partition + swap (from a
previous RH install).  If I repartition by deleting the ext3 and
repartitionning that space in 2, on the partition setup screen I
notice the 1st partition is already listed as ext3, and the 2nd not.
Then I realize it comes from the previous (RH) install.  I had not
realized that when just selecting a single partition, when I thought
"ext3" was just a default.

Now if my original single-partition-over-RH had gone throught the
reboot stage, I may surely have ended up with a strange install. And
indeed the nc binary I had noticed, as well as the __libc_stack_end
issues probably derive from that.

 -> Maybe the partition-setup screen could emphasize this issue ?

 -> How about forcing system partitions (/, /usr(/*)?, /var(/*)?) to
 be formatted, or at least require confirmation ?

 -> Is it really a good idea to use those programs just installed
 before rebooting ?


- Now when I decide to split the existing partition in 2, but do not
realize I must explicitely select "format as ext3", since my partition
already appears as having ext3 selected (I thought), and go on, I'm
brought back to the main menu on the next step, and requesting to
install the base system brings me back there again almost instantly.
Only by looking at syslog I finally notice a "read beyond end of
device" attempt, which finally enlighten me on what's going on.

 -> the user should be notified of such errors by an error box.

 -> What about forcing the user to reformat such partitions, which we
 can decide must be invalid because they just reuse an existing block ?
 
 Or, probably better, when destroying a partition, we (cfdisk ?) could
 ask the user whether to nuke the 1st sectors, to avoid further
 misdetection.


- Once base packages are unpacked, while setting up lilo, I'm now
presented with a textbox containing the devfs name for the disk.  If I
want to install lilo in another location, it looks like I have to know
the devfs path, whereas in the old installer I could choose in a list,
which is much more suited to people not knowing devfs

BTW, is it wise at all to use devfs, which is tagged as OBSOLETE in 2.6 !?


- Selecting "French" as the keyboard layout after reboot, I do not
have time to see the keymap name, and subsequent error message, before
the next dialog screen.  And I end up with a querty-looking layout.

Looking at base-config.log, it appears that the selected layout is
mac-usb-fr (!).  That reminds me of a long-gone issue in console-tools
debconf settings.  Is it possible that some old
config-scripts/templates are kept around ?

Just after that, I get "KDGKBENT at index 128 in table 8: invalid
argument", "failed to dump keymap" and "not loading keymap" messages,
which may explain why I still have a qwerty layout.

In the meantime, I was asked to enter the root password... and did
that using the qwerty layout, which is sure to give me an
unretrievable password when I change back to the correct layout
(ie. fr-pc).

If then I attempt to "loadkeys fr-pc" it works fine, but if I
"install-keymap fr-pc" I get the same error messages.


- When asked to select (again) an http mirror for downloading
packages, 1) my previous selection is not the default, maybe because
of 2) the country names being listed in english, despite all other
text being correctly in french.  However, the proxy information was
correctly memorized.

Regards,

-- 
Yann Dirson <Yann.Dirson@fr.alcove.com>                 http://www.alcove.com/
Technical support manager                Responsable de l'assistance technique
Senior Free-Software Consultant          Consultant senior en Logiciels Libres
Debian developer (dirson@debian.org)                        Développeur Debian


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----- End forwarded message -----
-- 
see shy jo

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