Bug#278085: debian-installer report
Package: installation-reports
Debian-installer-version:
http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimage-testing/daily/i386/current/sarge-i386-businesscard.iso
23-Oct-2004 23:10
uname -a: Linux konishi 2.4.27-1-k7 #1 Fri Sep 3 06:21:29 UTC 2004 i686 GNU/Linux
Date: from Oct 24 18:59:37 to Oct 24 20:47:51 BST 2004
Method: the business card cd image listed above: boot from that.
apt source set to a http mirror. No proxy necessary
Machine: Medion multimedia PC
Processor: XP2600+
Memory: 512MB
Root Device: /dev/hdc7 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro) (IDE)
Root Size/partition table:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 1 7650 61448593+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdc2 7651 14593 55769647+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdc5 14084 14593 4096543+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/hdc6 7651 7772 979902 82 Linux swap
/dev/hdc7 * 7773 14083 50693076 83 Linux
Output of lspci and lspci -n:
see attached files (lspci and lspci-n)
Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Initial boot worked: [O]
Configure network HW: [O]
Config network: [E]
Detect CD: [O]
Load installer modules: [O]
Detect hard drives: [O]
Partition hard drives: [E]
Create file systems: [O]
Mount partitions: [O]
Install base system: [O]
Install boot loader: [O]
Reboot: [O]
Comments/Problems:
Generally I was very impressed with the installer. There are just a few
suggestions I would make.
The installer attempted to configure the network with DHCP but there is no
DHCP server on my LAN. I'm not sure if I missed an option to configure
manually, but I disliked having to wait for the DHCP requests to timeout
before being offered manual configuration.
When partitioning manually, the advice offered should include the size of
SWAP partition necessary. I went for 2*(memory) but I wasn't sure if this is
necessary anymore.
When opting to NOT put grub in the MBR, the 'where should I put' screen was
horrible. I couldn't remember that my HD was hdc not hda; so the /dev/hdx
notation was a no-go. A list of partitions here would have helped. The grub
notation also is hard for a novice (fair enough the off-by-one, but when
logical partitions are numbered 5+ it gets a bit confusing). I gave up
trying to select the / partition and opted for MBR after all (which I wanted
to avoid).
Putting the hdx entries in /dev on the cd would really help here, as we
could go to another console and open up c?fdisk as necessary to make
decisions.
After the grub stuff the installer seemed to go into some sort-of debug mode
and I was prompted as to what stage to use after each step.
I opted for none of the package-groups (e.g. desktop) selecting only 'manual
configuration'. I thought the number of selected packages in aptitude was
rather large, and removed most of them before going ahead with the install.
I got it down to 15MB of packages to download which was more satisfying. A
more bare-bones option?
I think most of the package configuration went well, although there were
three prompts for SSH: the first relevant to the client and server, the
second only for the server, and the third asking if you wanted to use the
server. If the third prompt came before the second, opting not to use the
daemon would remove the need for the second question altogether.
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