Installation issues.
I have a Intel DG965SS motherboard with a Core 2 Duo processor, a DVD RW
device on the IDE channel and two Sata drives. I also have a usb unit in
the floppy disk drive slot that allows me to load various forms of camera
memory cards.
A couple of weeks ago I downloaded a Debian Netistall CD, but because of
an issue also loaded the 1st DVD of the lenny DVD distribution set (dated,
I believe, 20th March).
I have been a long time Debian user - but recently made the "mistake" of
switching to a 64 bit version of the software. I say mistake, because
whilst most of it worked, flash - an important component of any web
experience barely worked in Iceweasel and never worked in Konqueror. So I
decided to switch back - taking a route via Kubuntu - but finding myself
uncomfortable with the small differences and wanted to switch back to
Debian. I also had to be extremely careful, as the Sata drives are
software raided, with LVM on one of the partitions, and much of this data
needed to be retained. (it means that setting up partitions properly is a
long manual process, and I in the end I probably had to go through it
about 10 to 15 times before I cleared all the hurdles and got a working
system - not entirely a installation problem - I had corrupted CDs and
some problems with my ISP and my network connection through all of this)
The first problem arose when I booted the netinstall CD, and almost
straight away found out that it couldn't find the CD to continue the
installation. I then decided maybe I needed more drivers and that perhaps
it would be better to download the full DVD (as mentioned above). I
wasn't until that also failed to find the CD, that I discovered the
generic.all_generic_ide=1 option which did actually then mean I could
carry on with the installation.
The second problem arises because the installation kernel seems to find
the SATA drives and the 4 drives that make up the memory card unit in a
different order to the way those are allocated when booting a normal
Debian system. IN particular, the installation CD allocated my Sata
drives as sde and sdf and when it reboots as the working system they
become sda and sdb (and the memory card sdc, sdd, sde and sdf). Because
most of this is raided it didn't actually matter except for the partitions
that we acting as swap where the wrong device got set up as the swap
files. (to make all this work in the end, I disconnected the memory card
device and did an installation without it connected).
The third problem revolved around trying to install software from the DVD
after the base system had been installed. The installation system got
stuck saying it needed a media change, but I was unable to remove the DVD
from the drive and I was unable to back off the installation processes.
In the end the only way out was to open another console and use the eject
program to eject and reload the (same) DVD. Installation then proceeded
to completion.
I relate these experiences because I hope that ultimately the process can
be made smoother.
The first issue (needing to add the generic.all_generic_ide=1), is I now
remember something I had to do when I first got the hardware and did the
installation. I had just forgotten about it, but I am surprised that what
ought to be relatively standard hardware still needs this manual step.
The second issue, the wrong device order, seems surprising to me. I still
don't understand how it is that the installation kernel and the running
kernel find the order differently.
The third issue is not necessarily repeatable - it only occurred once
I hope you find the input useful. I am not subscribed to the list, so
please direct any queries you have to my e-mail address.
--
Alan
(via webmail - means I am away from my computer)
http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk
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