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Many comments to Beta 3



Hi,

(please CC: me)

I tested the current Beta 3 of the installer (my aim was not to install a new
system, that's why I send no installation report) and want to inform you about
my experiences. There are many little issues which are mostly not very important.

I used the netinst image from
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/etch_di_beta3/i386/iso-cd/.

The first confusing fact are the names:
debian-testing-i386-businesscard.iso (38MB)
debian-testing-i386-netinst.iso (139MB)

I know this has been already discussed in the past but now I have a local pocket
CD available and noticed that it fits up to 210 MB. So it's sufficient large for
a netinst CD. The businesscard ISO name is that's why confusing.
Why not swap the names? (A netinst CD is also useful as rescue system, ... without
network connection at all, a businesscard CD probably not.)

I also suggest to create links in iso-dvd/ as well, since these are also valid
DVD images.

The following refers to the graphical user frontend and expert mode but I also
tested the newt and partially text frontend:

There is a "Screenshot" button which I cannot select/use. I tried TAB and
cursor keys, no success! An Alt+S shortcut (which is visible via: "_Screenshot")
would be nice. I tried also my print key but the button appearance did not
change (no pressed+release animation or something fancy like this).

I have also an ugly mouse cursor in the middle of the screen. Since the mouse
does not work I suggest to hide it (e.g. by moving it to the bottom right
corner). Or is there a proper mouse support for some types of mice? I use an
ordinary three button serial mouse (/dev/ttyS1) with the Microsoft mouse
protocol. There is no way to configure the mouse but gpm (maybe using a
repeater mode so that the graphical frontend (and later X?) needs to understand
only one protocol) is easy to configure and could also be used to copy and
paste text during the installation. Update: I bought a USB mouse today which works.

Also important and probably very easy to fix: Three dots (...) are displayed as
"......". The text frontend handles this right. Maybe I should use U+2026
HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS (…). Is this supported?
What about en-dashs (are these also supported in the newt,text,... frontends)?

Is there any reason why the kernel option for the serial console
(console=ttyS0,115200n8) is not used by
default (or at least mentioned in the help screens)? May it cause trouble
without serial interface?

I get in minicom no fancy ascii graphic (UTF-8 terminal):
 +����������+ [?] Debian installer main menu +�����������+  

Also only C and English locale can be used. What encoding works via serial
console, only 7 bit ascii (that's not yet contained in the manual!)?

Also the newt frontend is still not able to handle 8 bit character input, e.g.
for the file system label. Entering such a string destroys the dialog.

Even if I specify "console=ttyS0,115200n8 console=tty0" I cannot access the
menu on the PC, only via serial console (but the kernel messages occur on
both terminals). Is this a debian-installer limitation because it uses only the
first console= argument?

The string "Choose language" at the beginning of the installation process (e.g.
during the locale selction) is not translated even after I selected German.
After a "Go Back" and reconfiguration it changed into the mixed term
"Sprache wählen/Choose language".

Also untranslated:
"Configure and start a PPPoE connection" (main menu)

#. This shows up in a screen summarizing options and will be followed
#. by "yes" or "no"
#: ../partman-crypto.templates:113
msgid "Erase data:"
Why are "yes" and "no" not translated?

The following translation (a dialog title) will be truncated:
#: ../partman-base.templates:304
msgid "Partition disks"
The text which occurs in the dialog is short:
#: ../partman-partitioning.templates:110
msgid "Type for the new partition:"
Maybe I could add spaces after the string to increase it, but this is not optimal!

I get the message "This computer may have a PCMCIA interface." but I
definitively have no PCMCIA interface, only two ordinary ethernet cards (one is
a ISA card).

During the network detection the installer wants to load the floppy module!???

Network configuration:
My PC is connected via eth0 with my notebook which itself is connected (via eth2)
to my router. There is no direct connection to the router. I enter my notebook as
gateway but cannot specify a nameserver (I have not installed bind).
I would like to use my router as nameserver but this requires a
route add -host <router ip> gw <notebook ip>
which I currently start manually from another console or ssh.

I know that there exists various solutions (nevertheless I like my current configuration):
 * installation of a nameserver on the notebook
 * direct connection to the router
 * DHCP

If I do not enter a nameserver and go back to the manual network config, the
nameserver is preseeded with the gateway! Also my "No" to DHCP usage is not
remembered, the default is always "Yes".

Is there a fixed IP list of nameservers available? Or maybe a Debian mirror IP list?

I used the menue item "Continue with SSH". It works great but this menu item
vanishes after first usage. The first time I tried it I pressed enter to fast
and missed that the user name is installer not root. I tried to repeat the SSH
configuration and failed. (Of course it's a stupid idea to select this item via
ssh interface since a changed configuration would probably terminate the
session, nevertheless it may be useful to have the possibility to start it again.)

Calling "Configure the network" from ssh main menu seems to reset the network, even if
no action is performed (for example just to look at the current configuration).
All entered network data is invalid after pressing "Go Back", it's necessary to configure 
the network again!

I was also once able to enter the "Continue with SSH" menu without a current
network configuration (the IP adress is the dialog was empty, also the ifconfig output).
IIRC I did the following: I entered a proper static network and selected later PPPoE
which failed and destroyed my configuration.

"Go Back" in "Detect disks" goes to partitioner, not to main menu.

Partitioning:
An existing partition on a USB hard disk can not be resized:
kernel: program parted_server is using a deprecated SCSI ioctl, please convert it to SG_IO

I cannot revert a proposed LVM partitioning of a whole disk. Nothing happens if
I select revert. I can remove all physical volumes manually but the related logical volumes
(which use removed PV!) cannot be removed!
Maybe the problem is again:
kernel: program parted_devices is using a deprecated SCSI ioctl, please convert it to SG_IO

I installed Grub in the MBR. After this I tried to install Grub into another
partition. Since I do not know how my external harddisk is named (hd2)?? I
skipped this part but the installer thinks now that a bootloader installation
is still missing ...

Another issue: I found a reference to the netinst CD four times in my /etc/apt/sources!
Two are commented out.

Jens



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