Short feedback about the ``Debian Installer etch beta 2''

[Thomas Schwinge <tschwinge@gnu.org>]

Hello!

I just spent some time trying to install Debian testing i386 (etch beta 2
release, netinst CD image) on a system with only 32 MiB of RAM...  (No, I
don't intend to use the system like that, but I thought I could already
install it, albeit not having the final memory equipment at hand.)

After using the console for adding a swap partition, real problems
nevertheless showed up at the time I was configuring the LVM setup:
lvcreate was OOM-killed by the kernel, although there was swap space
available.  My work-around--after having tried once more--was then to
borrow another 32 MiB of RAM from another system.  In the documentation
it is written that 32 MiB of RAM should be sufficient for installation.

Another issue popped up when the installer was trying to install the main
software packages (i.e. after installing the base system).  The
installation hung.  Lacking a better idea, on the console, I killed the
hanging apt-get and re-ran it by hand, chrooting into /target/.  apt-get
then prompted me to make the Debian CD available at /cdrom--which it was
already.  I interrupted the installer, removed the ``deb cdrom'' line
from /target/etc/apt/sources.list and resumed installation having it
retrieve the packages over the network.

The installation went flawlessly then!  :-)


Regards,
 Thomas