Bug#240760: Successful report on Rebel Netwinder (ARM)
Package: installation-reports
INSTALL REPORT
Debian-installer-version: daily snapshot from 2004-03-28
uname -a: 2.4.25
Method: I netbooted boot.img obtained from
http://people.debian.org/~vince/d-i/images/daily/netwinder/netboot/
via TFTP. I did one installation with a VGA monitor and PS/2 keyboard, and
another one via the serial console
Machine: Corel/Rebel Netwinder
Processor: ARM
Memory: 128
Root Device: IDE
Output of lspci:
0000:00:00.0 Co-processor: Digital Equipment Corporation StrongARM DC21285 (rev 03)
0000:00:09.0 VGA compatible controller: Intergraphics Systems CyberPro 2000A (rev 01)
0000:00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21142/43 (rev 41)
0000:00:0c.0 ISA bridge: Symphony Labs W83C553 (rev 10)
0000:00:0c.1 IDE interface: Symphony Labs SL82c105 (rev 05)
0000:00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: Winbond Electronics Corp W89C940F
Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Initial boot worked: [O]
Configure network HW: [O] initially some problems, most of them solved
Config network: [O]
Detect CD: [ ]
Load installer modules: [O]
Detect hard drives: [O]
Partition hard drives: [O]
Create file systems: [O] should warn if using ext3 for root
Mount partitions: [O]
Install base system: [O]
Install boot loader: [ ] doesn't need a boot loader
Reboot: [O]
Comments/Problems:
I think this is the first installation with debian-installer on a
Netwinder. I used the boot.img image (a daily snapshot) and booted via
TFTP. I passsed the following arguments to the kernel:
root=/dev/ram0 devfs=mount
The first time I tried it, it looked for hardware and then I got the
error "Error: No Ethernet card was found on the system". I noticed
that the network driver was not compiled into the kernel, and neither
were modules part of the initrd. I talked to Vince on IRC, and we
checked a fix for pkg-list into SVN. Vince prepared a new image and I
tried again. This time, I was presented with a list of various
modules. I choose the one I needed (e2k-pci) and it worked. I
suggested to Vince that discover should be part of the initrd. He
gave me new images and automatic recogniztion of modules worked.
There is a problem, however: Netwinder have 2 NICs: eth0 is commonly
the e2k-pci 10 MBit, while eth1 is the Tulip 10/100 MBit device.
Unfortunately, lspci shows them in the other order, and thus discover
reverses this very common naming scheme (all the Netwinder info refers
to the e2k-pci device as "eth0"). I don't think that it's possible to
tell discover to use a different order. I think one solution would be
to build the e2k-pci module into the kernel, and have the tulip driver
as a module. Comments on this?
The installation went pretty smoothly. cfdisk was started, I
partitioned the disks. I noticed ext3 was not available and pointed
this out to Vince; he added it to the initrd... I then chose to use
ext3 for the root partition, but this turned out to be a bad choice
because the firmware cannot boot from it. I had to re-install on an
ext2 partition. Can d-i warn about such things? Are there hooks for
this? Also, should ARM switch to partman?
The base system was installed without any problems. Well, one minor,
cosmetic problem. The machine is kinda slow, and therefore it would
be nice if the progress bar would be more fine grained.
Oh, and the wrong kernel was installed: kernel-image-2.4.19-riscstation.
It turns out that 2.4.25-netwinder is not in testing yet, so it falls
back to 19-riscstation. It's not quite clear to me why it didn't
present a list of all ARM kernel in testing. However, I later
installed unstable, and the right kernel was installed.
For the Netwinder there is a package called nwutil to change some
hardware settings. This should be installed after the base.
According to Joey, base-installer has some hooks to install sub-arch
specific packages.
Also, while looking through the logs, I noticed this message:
| GNU parted was miscompiled: the FAT boot sector should be 512 bytes. FAT
| support will be disabled.
I guess this is a problem on ARM in general.
After the install, /etc/fstab was empty. I don't know why, though.
I also got this message:
WARNING: Your /etc/fstab does not contain the fsck passno field. I will
kludge around things for you, but you should fix your /etc/fstab file as
soon as you can.
But I suppose this is because my /etc/fstab was empty. (empty: there was a
heading saying /etc/fstab was unconfigured.)
serial install
==============
I later tried booting via serial console. Unfortunately, once it
started booting the kernel I didn't have any output anymore. Passing
console=ttyS0 to the kernel did not help. I needed
console=ttyS0,115200. This should be documented. So the full line
was:
setenv cmdappend root=/dev/ram0 devfs=mount console=ttyS0,115200
settings
========
For reference, my firmware settings were (for the VGA install):
netconfig_eth0 dhcp dhcp
eth0_ip 192.168.1.4/24 192.168.1.4/24
kernconfig tftp tftp
kerntftpserver 192.168.1.2 192.168.1.2
kerntftpfile boot.img boot.img
cmdappend root=/dev/ram0 devfs=mount root=/dev/ram0 devfs=mount
General issues
==============
- I wanted to use a custom (FTP) mirror. I chose: mirror -> custom ->
hostname -> path -> error because it used HTTP. When I try again,
I can choose between FTP and HTTP, but then it has forgotten the
hostname and path I entered previously. I think it should ask
FTP/HTTP all the time when choosing a custom mirror, and remember
what I entered before.
- It asked me to choose a mirror, I chose the country, and then was
presented a list of mirrors. I went back, opened a shell, and then
went back and got the following menu:
[!] Choose a mirror of the Debian archive
Debian archive mirror country:
GB
GR
HK
HR
That is, the country names were not shown anymore.
- In the logs, i found:
Setting up exim4-cofig
hostname: Unknown host
/etc/hosts did not exit, /etc/hostname did and had the hostname. I
don't know if this is serious.
- Overlapping windows:
No boot loader is installed on the Netwinder. When it tries to finish up,
a menu is displayed like this:
Finishing the install
7%
Running the final message
Then it shows this message:
[!!] Finish the installation and reboot
Installation complete
Installation is complete, so it is time to boot into your new Debian
[...]
This is pretty ugly because the old window can still be seen. (i.e. the 2nd
window is on top of the 1st)
- In base-config, it asked me to choose APT methods. I decided to choose
"FTP", then realized I had done that before, checked out
/etc/apt/sources.list, noticed my mirror is in there already, and
canceled the mirror selection in base-config: afterwards my apt config
line was commented out.
Also, apt-config did not know about the custom mirror I entered during
the first stage.
Thanks to Vincent Sanders for his ARM work, and to Petter Reinholdtsen
for making this machine available.
--
Martin Michlmayr
tbm@cyrius.com
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