Bug#394929: [Etch] installation-guide-i386 - several steps are misleading or cannot be finished
All in all, I did the following:
* I used the current daily netinst CD image (BTW, updated Polish
translation in the installer is a very nice touch!)
* The disk I've used has been partitioned like:
/dev/hda1 2.0 GB (root ext3 fs for "debhost")
/dev/hda2 2.0 GB (root ext3 fs for "debinst")
/dev/hda5 290 MB (swap space)
* I installed the regular system "debhost" on hda1 (without the
"standard" task, however) to get a base for installation using
the deboostrap method
* I installed the "debinst" system on hda2 using the debootstrap method
from inside the "debhost" system
Actually, I did the process twice, to get repeatable results.
Here are my comments:
1) All was great until I came to the "resolv.conf" part.
First, the "search hqdom.local\000" notation is very strange to me.
Debian installer sets this differently - there's no "\000" at the end.
2) d-i puts actually two lines in /etc/hosts, like:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 DebianHostName.hqdom.local DebianHostName
granted that "hqdom.local" is the name of the domain. BTW. why not leave
these examples with easily recognizable "localdomain" instead?
3) Putting the recommended lines for GRUB in /etc/kernel-img.conf:
postinst_hook = update-grub
postrm_hook = update-grub
left the installed kernel image unconfigured, as there was no boot
loader installed at this point (yet!), so "update-grub" was an unknown
command at this time. I struggled a bit to resolve this problem, and
finally I succeded.
Apparently these two lines should only be added *AFTER* the installation
of grub. Additionally, the "D.3.6. Set up the Boot Loader" section
recommends to run "update-grub" manually, so no harm here.
4) Installation of grub from inside the chroot is tricky beyond
comprehension. Shortly speaking: it never works (for me, at least).
Yet, the d-i does a good job and installs it without problems. Using my
previously described workarounds helped here once again.
I noted, however, that using the d-i CD the contents /mnt/debinst/dev is
substantially different than when performing the manual, debootstrap
install. Additionally, as can be seen in logs, d-i uses the following
command to install grub:
chroot /target grub-install --recheck --no-floppy "(hd0)"
and it works!
If you want, I can produce a VMWare Player image with the installation
paused at this point, so you can examine the problem yourself.
Overall the refreshed documentation is very good. I would only suggest
to review carefully the bootloader installation process, as this is the
most problematic part I've encountered.
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