Sparc d-i problem - unable to mount CD
Hello, good d-i folks!
I'm trying to help with testing the d-i sparc64 CD's on the Sun Blade 150,
which is at my disposal. First I need to state that on the machine there's
a working Debian sarge installed already.
I tried today the latest debian installer 'businesscard' image.
There is a problem with it, the same as with the 'rc3' I tried lately.
The problem is as follows: installer CD boots fine and the USB keyboard
works very well (thanks again, Joey and Vince!), but soon d-i is unable
to mount the IDE CD. So I cannot follow the installation procedure,
because installer components are located on the very same CD :-(
It's like the catch #22...
The system I installed uses an old 2.4.26 kernel. Why? Because it works!
All the recent kernel images (2.4.27-1 and 2.4.27-2) suggested by apt-get
and aptitiude do not boot the machine correctly - I already reported that.
As the d-i uses the same 2.4.27 kernel, the same problems apply.
Being proactive, I installed kernel-tree, kernel-package, etc. and
compiled the kernel myself, using these two guides:
* "Preliminary Sarge Installation Manual, 8.4. Compiling a New Kernel"
http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.sparc/ch08s04.html
* "Creating custom kernels with Debian's kernel-package system"
http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/system/kernel-pkg.html.en
I did the following:
1) copy the 2.4.26's .config to the unpacked 2.4.27 source
2) make oldconfig (only several items were "NEW", nothing too serious)
3) make-kpkg (with the proper parameters, e.g. --revision)
4) install resulting package using dpkg -i
5) update silo.conf accordingly
The kernel built this way WORKS. It's worth noting that:
* it's based on the 2.4.27-8 version of the kernel-source-2.4.27 package
* .config's settings are migrated from 2.4.26 (last year they were the
DEFAULTS of the Debian distrubution, as I didn't modify them)
* the kernel does not use initrd (modules are simply installed in
/lib/modules/2.4.27 directory)
* I built this kernel yesterday (on the April's fools' day) ;-)
[but it really works!]
I would like to ask for advice: what should I do in this situation?
I checked the debian-kernel mailing list and I see that there are
changes planned wrt Debian's kernel. Meanwhile I have the system
installed and I'm just experimenting with spare partitions. But in
the event that I ever need to reinstall it, I would have a big problem
again. I can easily get a lot of hardware-related details of that
machine (actually, it's a lab with 10 such machines). I can test
whatever is needed, so I could provide some help, I think.
From my point of view the problem I discovered is closely related
to the kernel configuration or initrd itself. So, what should I do?
File a bug report? And who will take care of it, just before "stable"
sarge release?
What is your advice, then?
Friendly,
Wiktor Wandachowicz
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