Bug#236937: debian-installer installation report
Package: installation-reports
INSTALL REPORT
Debian-installer-version: Beta 2 (2004-03-01), from ftp://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/unstable/main/installer-i386/current/images/floppy
uname -a: Linux weatherwax 2.4.25-1-386 #1 Tue Feb 24 08:11:13 EST 2004 i586 GNU/Linux
Date: 2004-03-06, roughly 22:00-00:00
Method: Boot from {boot,root}.img floppies, use net-drivers.img for 3c59x.o
network driver, get DHCP lease from router, rest done via network install
from the Netherlands using ISP Demon.
Machine: No-name second-hand PC
Processor: GenuineIntel P5 133MHz
Memory: 64MB
Root Device: Seagate ST32122A IDE HDD
Root Size/partition table: $ fdisk -l /dev/hda
Disk /dev/hda: 2111 MB, 2111864832 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4092 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 3681 1855192+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 3682 4092 207144 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda1 is mounted on /
Output of lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 430TX - 82439TX MTXC (rev 01)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 01)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 01)
00:12.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. 86c325 [ViRGE] (rev 06)
00:14.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c900B-TPO [Etherlink XL TPO] (rev 04)
Base System Installation Checklist:
Initial boot worked: [O]
Configure network HW: [O]
Config network: [O]
Detect CD: [ ]
Load installer modules: [O]
Detect hard drives: [O]
Partition hard drives: [E]
Create file systems: [E]
Mount partitions: [O]
Install base system: [O]
Install boot loader: [E]
Reboot: [O]
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Comments/Problems:
Installation went fine up until the hard drive partition thingy came up, where
I couldn't say that my newly-created partition had to have XFS filesystem. By
the way, this default partition creation thing feels way slower than the rest
of the install system, certainly in comparison with something like cfdisk.
I knew that creating/installing to an XFS filesystem had to be possible, so I
poked around a bit in the installer's root menu and found the "Partition a hard
drive" option (which, in my opinion, is too similar in name to the "Partition
disks" option directly above). This gave me cfdisk and then let me create an
XFS filesystem. It seems weird that one part of the install system can create
XFS filesystems, while another cannot. Anyway, I don't know whether this is an
error in the ``Partition hard drives'' item or the ``Create file systems''
items in the checklist above, so I put an [E] at both of them. This confusion
comes from there apparently being two ways to create file systems, so there you
go. Another point of confusion (or at least, inconsistency) was the display of
size units; sometimes a gigabyte would be shown as GB, sometimes as GiB; the
same for MB and MiB.
Installation went fine for a bit more, but then something wouldn't complete
during the installation of Grub; it would just sit there and do nothing. So I
went to a second terminal, killed Grub (or grub-install or whatever it was) and
the debian-installer went along as if everything went fine (didn't complain
about killing of Grub). After rebooting, I used a Grub boot floppy to install
Grub to the MBR (which worked without problems) and my new shiny system seems
to work like a charm since.
Thanks to everybody that is making this new debian-installer possible; overall
it seems a much better, consistent, coherent system for installing Debian than
it was before. And the pre-boot logo on the boot floppy is just *so* sexy...
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