Installation report: distinct behavior from install CDs.
Dear debian-boot,
This report describes issures related to version 5.02. It concerns the distinction between the minimal install CD (containing enough to download a base system) and the typical install CD (containing enough to install a base system). I found a case where their behavior differs in the sense that one works and the other does not.
I have successfully used both CD images. But when I set up a local mirror using apt-mirror, the minimal CD dislikes the mirror and refuses to use it, while the typical CD works fine on the same target machine.
I have installed a variety of machines from the local mirror so it appears to be working correctly. It is in regular use and handles upgeades as well as installs, so the fact that one install uses a larger set of packages that the other is probably not the problem.
It is possible that this is a problem with apt-mirror, but it appears to me that even if the problem lies with apt-mirror the fact that the two installation CDs react differently probably indicates that one of them is wrong (i.e., broken).
One of the frustrating aspects of the failure for the user is the vagueness of the error message. It claims that the problem is either the inability to reach the mirror or invalid packages. I suggest that it would be beneficial to produce a message describing the actual problem rather than suggesting potential problems. After all it could be a bad cpu, motherboard, ram, power supply, CD, CD drive, or disk drive, but mentioning those possible problems would send the user off on a long wild goose chase that would almost certainly be a dead end -- just like mentining corrupt packages if the mirror is inaccessible or mentioning access problems if packages are corrupt.
And fixing an access problem is quite orthogonal to fixing a package corruption problem. A beginner might be able to handle the former, but would certainly be daunted by the latter.
If necessary I can provide voluminous details related to the issue, but it seems to me that it is fairly simple to reproduce by running apt-mirror and trying the minimal installation CD against the result.
FWIW,
Lee Winter
NP Engineering
Nashua, New Hampshire
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