Is there a way to install Debian or Unbutu without using the installer?
Geert Stappers wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 28, 2005 at 12:37:37AM +0800, Navarre of Anjov wrote:
>
>> The installer has changed so much between Woody and Sarge that I am
seeking a better way. Thus far I have had a 100% failure rate of
installing Sarge or any unbutu CD install.
>
>
>
> Could you describe how it fails?
> (an install report would also help)
>
>
> GSt
>
The first problem I encountered was error 18 from grub after the first
reboot. To get around this problem I installed lilo after reinstalling
the whole install again. The rescue boot did not work, could not mount
/dev/hda1.
At the end of this long email is a comment from me, its intent is to
offer feedback not as a complaint or to critisise in a negative manner.
I am about to reinstall the same machine with Ubuntu 5.10 install.
The basics of which are: Intel chipset pentium pro 200 CPU, ide disks of
2 Gig and 400 Meg, Ide cdrom, pci video, isa sound card. Sorry I do not
have the lspci output.
I will indicate the choises I am making as I progress through the install.
Boot: server-expert
language - english - australia.
Locale: en_AU - no other locales.
Keyboard layout - American english.
Detect cdrom - no prompt for parametres - accepted all modules to load
(the cdrom is ide as hdd).
PC card services - no (not a laptop).
tune cdrom - no - CDROM detected.
Load debconf preseed file.
load installer components from CD - added - baseconfig, choose-mirror,
eject.
Detect network hardware - prompt no.
Configure network - dhcp yes - suceeded
Hostname - 'pro200' and dhcp offered domain
Choose mirror - au.unbutu. via local squid proxy.
Multiseat - ignord this question as I have know idea of what it does.
Detect Hardware - prompt for parameters 'No'.
Partition disks - manual edit.
hda is partitioned as hda1 ext3, hda2 as swap.
Set hda1 to format (to remove the previous install),
set to mount as /, bootable
hda2 set as swap.
Write settings to disk, yes - hda1 formated
"Very long Blue sreen with nothing on it" - returned to menu
Install the Base system - from the CD
I am presented with a list of kernels:
linux-386
linux-image-386
* linux-image-2.6.12-9-386
I choose the third option
Configure Timezone - Australia/Perth - then had to go back to
is the hardware clock set to GMT - Local time on my machines
then back to telling the installer again Australia/Perth.
Passwords and users - yes to shadow passwords
set password for root and established myself as a user with password
Configure APT - found the CDROM - yes to world universe and backported.
passed through this stage even though I was not connected to the
Internet - This is good.
*** on console three at this time ***
Setting up installation-report (2.6ubuntu20 ...
perl: warning: Setting locale failed
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
LANGUAGE = (unset),
LC_ALL = (unset),
LANG = "C.UTF-8"
are supported and installed on your system
perl: waring: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
locale 'en_AU' not available
... above repeated again. total two times ...
Generating locales...
en_AU.ISO-8859-1... done
en_US.UTF-8... done
Generation complete.
*** ------------------------
Install the Grub boot loader - installing the Grub package
Master boot record - Yes - running "grub-install (hd0)"...
*** on console 3
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives, This may take a long time.
Due to a bug in xfs_freeze, the following command might produce a
segmentation fault when /boot/grub is not in an XFS filesystem. This
error is harmless and can be ignored.
xfs_freeze: specified file ["/boot/grub"] is not on an XFS filesystem
Installation finished. No error reported.
This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map.
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.
(hd0) /dev/hda
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub .
Testing for an existing GRUB menu.list file...
Could not find /boot/grub/menu.lst file. Would you like
/boot/grub/menu.lst generated for you? (y/N) Searching for splash
image... none found, skipping...
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-9-386
Found kernel: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Updating /boot/grub/menu/lst ... done
*** --------------
No password for Grub - blank
Finish the installation
CD ejected - rebooting system
System booted OK
Now have install blue sreen with box saying 'Installing packages'
Preparing for installation...
**** on console 4
Reading package lists...
Building dependancy tree...
Recommended packages:
laptop-detect
The following NEW packages will be installed:
xresprobe
*** ------------------------
Absolutly nothing happening onscreen console 1 with blue screen
(background).
On console two I have logged in as root ans running top shows
5231 root 25 0 7324 4060 3456 R 99.3 3.2 7:59.32 apt-get
I killed apt-get from top and placed the CDrom in the drive and packages
started to install. - Not connected to the Internet at this time.
This time the whole install worked, there is one difference. I have only
a hda hard drive and a hdd cdrom drive in the system. Previous I had
hda, same drive, and an additional hdc hard drive.
--------------
Next attempt, followed all the same steps as above with the hdc hard
drive. i told the partitioner thing to leave the second hard drive alone
and to format hda1.
The whole install worked, but the menu for grub was different, this time
it gave me an onscreen menu and more options.
After reboot I have the same blue screen "Installing packages" sittong
there for over 10 minutes, no errors and no indication of what it doing,
waiting for, errors, nothing. From top I can see it gobbling up as much
CPU as it can get. PS ax gives:
4904 tty1 Ss 0:00 /bin/login --
4905 tty3 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3
4906 tty4 Ss+ 0:00 /usr/bin/tail -f /var/log/base-config-pkgsel.log
5007 tty1 S+ 0:00 script -q -a /var/log/base-config.log -t
5012 tty1 S+ 0:00 script -q -a /var/log/base-config.log -t
5013 pts/0 Ss+ 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/sbin/base-config -i
5290 pts/0 S+ 0:00 /bin/sh ./menu/pkgsel new
5297 pts/0 S+ 0:00 /usr/bin/perl -w /usr/share/debconf/frontend
./menu/p
5303 pts/0 S+ 0:00 /bin/sh ./menu/pkgsel debconf
5305 pts/0 S+ 0:00 whiptail --backtitle Ubuntu Configuration
--title Ins
5318 pts/0 S+ 0:00 /bin/sh ./menu/pkgsel debconf
5319 pts/0 S+ 0:00 /bin/sh ./menu/pkgsel debconf
5320 pts/0 R+ 10:28 apt-get -o APT::Status-Fd=4 -o
APT::Keep-Fds::5=5 -o A
5321 pts/0 S+ 0:00 /bin/sh ./menu/pkgsel debconf
5323 pts/0 S+ 0:00 /usr/lib/apt/methods/cdrom
5333 tty2 S 0:00 -bash
5346 tty2 R+ 0:00 ps ax
and 30 minutes later
5320 pts/0 r+ 32:39 apt-get -o APT::Status-Fd=4 -o
APT::Keep-Fds::5=5 -o A
So I #kill 5320
and something respawned the problem line.
*** console 4 shows
./menu/pkgsel: line 68: 5320 Terminated
DEBIAN_HAS_FRONTEND= DEBCONF_REDIR DEBIAN_FRONTEND=passthrough
DEBIAN_PRIORITY="$priority" DEBCONF_READFD=5 DEBCONF_WRITEFD=6 "$@" 5<%0
6>&3 3>&- </dev/null
So with the CD in the drive I again kill the new instance of the problem
process and presto the packages start installing.
** Conclusions **
The lack of information error reporting is a problem that I have not
seen in previous installers. Even with some log info being steamed to
console 4 there are no clues as to what is going on most of the time.
Generally there is plenty of useful log info only when things are
progressing nicely.
I believe the hard drive partitioner is dreadful. Even with Woody I
would use the second console and use fdisk to create, and sometimes use
mke2fs -j to format the root partition, then use the installer options
to mount the previously initialised partition. I dare not configure any
other partitions as the installer grabbed these and used them for /home,
/usr, ..., which I did/ do not want it to do. The new installer insists
on rewriting the partitions of drives I do not want re-partitioned and
does not geve me the option to mount the partitions as I want, without
saying it is going to re-write the partion table. If infact the
partition tables are not re-written then the descriptional language of
the actions of the installer script/ program is at fault. I must take
what the prompts state at face value. If it states re-write then I must
believe that the partion table will be changed.
The first few times I attempted to install sarge, then Ubuntu, I got to
the partitioner and could not progress any further. I expected when I
selected 'server-expert' I would have more control in the critical ares
of installing, such as the partitioning of hard drives. I was very
dissapointed to find that that was not the case. That is why I went to
the Debian website to find if others are having the same problem, and
where I found the details of the mailing list.
I have been reading the mail list for two months or more and see there
are a number of dedicated people driving the Debian installer, I thank
you all.
I have been using Debian Linux since the days of Slink and use it
professionaly for servers on customer sites and program development.
Before I can place a linux box on a customers site or establish a new
server for systems development I must have confidence that what is
installed is going to work. I am loosing that confidence. And this talk
of graphical installers for Etch horrors me.
So I go back to the subject line, it must be posible to install debian
and ubuntu from a command prompt & run the scripts manually. The blue
screen hides all that I want to see and robs me of the control I expect
to get from installing and running a Linux system.
Regards Glen
navarre@anjov.com
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