Debian Bug Tracking System wrote:
... From: Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>... Given that your installation was a complete success, I do as usual with reports for successful installations: I close the bug..:-) Yes, I wrote success, despite the later explanations you gave. Actually, none of the problems you encountered do really belong to the installer, except probably the hang solved by blacklisting the audio driver.
Hi Christian,Thanks for your response. There is one simple installer issue that I forgot to write in the original installation report. I suggest that the install guide have a paragraph on blacklisting. This would have saved me one of the large time-sync/frustration hurdles.
When the installer failed to reboot on the nx9600 I had no idea what to do. From the boot messages, I knew immediately there was a problem with the i810_audio driver. At that moment, I didn't know this driver was part of oss and could be safely eliminated. Once I discovered it could be eliminated (through Googling) I had no idea how to do it.
Eventually I found some references to "blacklisting". However, I never found any description of how to do that. Frustration was growing. Then, I finally found one discussion board thread where somebody talked about the requirement to blacklist i810_audio in two places: both hotplug and discover. That was finally a clue.
I found the following process to accomplish the blacklisting and am still uncertain as to whether or not this is the recommended approach. Using expert26 install mode, I progressed the installer to the point just before it rebooted, switched to the virtual console, figured out where the new root disk was mounted, found /etc on the root disk from the mount point, looked at files/directories involving hotplug and discover, homed in on /etc/hotplug/blacklist and /etc/discover.conf, read those files and edited them to blacklist i810_audio, and then continued with the boot into the new root.
Given the number of references to blacklisting I found on the web, this would seem to be a sufficiently common occurrence to warrant an install-guide note. I never read the entire install guide, as I suspect few users do, but it was the first place I turned when there was a problem. I text-searched it initially for i810_audio, and soon for blacklist (and obvious variants like "black"). If the process had been there, it would have helped a great deal.
Thanks for all your efforts on the installer. I have a deeper appreciation of the issues in the installer than this message suggests. Prior to installing the nx9600, I tried it on a new Sager 9880. That was much more difficult, if not impossible, as I could never the disk accessible. I gave up, returned the Sager, and bought the HP instead. In the process of trying things on the Sager, I built my own install packages with custom kernels that contained all the various drivers I could find that the Sager required (e.g., I needed fixes in libata for a Promise sata378 tx2plus controller that were only made in 2.6.11 and 2.6.12). This got me closer to the installer and the various issues it faces with module lists/correspondences, etc.
Best, Chuck //