pegasos/ppc install failing at kernel-install, need help ...

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

Hello,

I have been battling with the powerpc kernel-installer since a few days,
and i don't manage to get it working correctly.

I also wonder how this thing is working for other powerpc kernels, or
even non-powerpc arches.

First a precision, i build debian-installer from the CVS HEAD branch,
use the netboot install and install unstable.

Everything works fine now, except the kernel-installer, which fails.

At first i tought that the problem was that the powerpc kernel fails to
install because it is separated into modules and image, but this should
also show up on other powerpc subarches, and upto now there has been no
reportabout this.

The first failure was for the preinst to complain, since
/lib/modules/2.4.22-powerpc is not empty, and this is due to the fact
that the kernel modules, not the kernel image install them. I hacked
kernel-package to upload a kernel which sets silent_modules, and thus
avoid this question.

The second failure was in the postinst, which says some error message
about depmod having run already, and it tests for the presence of the
modules.dep. I am baffled about this one, since both the kernel-modules
as also the x86 kernels have this modules.dep file, so it should fail
everywhere, but it does not (or we would have known about this earlier).
So, i again hacked the kernel-patch postinst script, and simply removed
this question.

Now, it again fails, but i am at a loss about why. The F3 console only
gives me the following messages :

  1) The (harmless because it doesn't expect feedback) message about
  /vmlinuz not existing :

    warn "$image_dest" .
    "$kimage does not exist. Installing from scratch, eh?\n";
    warn "Or maybe you don't want a symbolic link here.  Hmm? Lets See.\n";

  I am baffled by this, i am not really perl fluent, and don't see what
  could be going wrong here for me, which doesn't go wrong for other
  powerpc subarches or other arches.

  2) umount was unable to unmount /target/proc. I thought this was a bug
  and is already fixed, i wonder if this is the cause of the problem or
  if it only comes later when base-config is trying to reset itself for
  a new install tentative.

Anyway, the message i get on console 1 is about base-installer telling
me that an error happened while installing kernel-image-2.4.22-powerpc-chrp.

I am totally at a loss of what is happening here, why it happens only to
me, and would very much appreciate some help or information from the
other powerpc d-i hackers, and wonder why it is working ok for them.

I am also very much tempted to build powerpc packages which don't relly
on kernel-packages in any way, since i have experienced only trouble
with it, and anyway, kernel-package is not up to handle the powerpc
kernel situation, and Manoj has expressed his opposition to fixing this
before the sarge release.

Friendly,

Sven Luther