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HP i2000 IA64 install experience w/3.1 testing



Summary:
After several attempts, Debian 3.1 "testing" was installed successfully on IA64 HP i2000 Itanium 733mhz single cpu. using the Debian 3.1 netinst.iso. "locale" errors were a problem on all installations. Consider this a bug report for the install dialog. Problems were experienced with earlier Sarge version and various mirrors.


Background:
We had HP-UX, then Winders on this box. This early bird Win64 doesn't seem
to be supported by Microsoft any longer. RH_AS runs our servers. If linux ran
on this HP it would be useful. (we have a few more lying around)
Redhat AS_4v3 install disk1 loaded an install kernal but crashed on boot with alignment errors.

Debian experience
1: Debian Sarge loaded, we chose "desktop"; the install errored out on 2.6 expert saying several packages didn't download correctly from the mirror (debian.lcs.mit.edu)

2: Debian Sarge got all the way on 2.4 vga, (had some package errors during/after downloading from lcs.mit.edu ) rebooted & ran - aptitude seemed to get hosed easily. Assumed it was because of older version - we got close enough it was worth pursuing.

3: Downloaded debian-testing-ia64-netinst.iso ( "Etch"?) went through expert load Was offered only "stable" from ftp.debian.org - (hey, why not?) this downloaded ok, rebooted but then similar errors as above from ftp.debian.org via aptitude.

4: Reran debian-testing-ia64-netinst.iso - took defaults "typical system" -
ftp.us.debian.org didn't work, went to debian.lcs.mit.edu ; "testing" came up default, downloaded & installed basic system fine, rebooted OK Ran aptitude - [made mistake of selecting X windows at the upper level without checking details - got all the foreign fonts which take forever ]- bumped out to aptitude shell with "too many errors" -
Most of the errors were locale (LC_xxx) errors - 'defaulting to LOCALE "C" '
Errors scroll by on the screen and we haven't found the aptitude log file
Reran "g" under aptitude a couple of times - started up where it left off - the fonts took forever because of font cache rebuilds.
xfs (X font server) started and had alignment errors
Reboot  hangs - hmm- were are getting close to success.

5: Re-ran debian-testing-ia64-netinst.iso in expert mode -
chose "fileserver"  loaded only basic system
rebooted OK
Loaded openssh-client & server with `apt-get install openssh-client`, `apt-get install openssh-server` Apt-get found these on the netinst.iso disk - it asked for "disk one" but was willing
to look on the proffered netinst CD.
After the experiences with the first 3 attempts, realized that the "locale" issues must be resolved
manually.
They showed up on root login, the 'man' command, etc, aptitude installs, etc).
How to solve "locale issues "  (After some manual surfing & trial & error):
Created /etc/locale.gen with 'echo  "en_US UTF-8"  >/etc/locale.gen'
ran `locale-gen`.
This fixed all the install errors we were having.
Ran aptitude to update 2 packages indicated, load xwindows basic, nis and some other utilities
from gatech.edu - worked fine, (Cool tool, haven't tried minesweeper yet).
x font server dies with alignment errors on startup. `xinit` command hangs console in darkened state. - Login via ssh to reset.

Comments:
After a fairly small time investment we began to grok the Debian way. Nice.
We are delighted at the fact our oddball hardware is supported. Will look
at Debian for more conventional hardware in the future.
Apt-get & aptitude work well with locale problems solved.
We saw "locale" errors in all installs - consider this a bug report for the install dialog. Recommend default net install be basic or "fileserver" so initial system build is
independent of mirrors.

Questions:
Should the "Locale" stuff be set by the language dialog during the install?
(Most of the errors were "Couldn't set LC_xxx - file not found")
Are there Debian analogs for Redhat's chkconfig, authconf and serviceconf?
How do we allow logins from nis users? (ypbind has a server but the users
and paths are not recognized)

thanks,
hurf











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