Installation report: SETUP.EXE dysfunctional
This report relates to version 5.02 of the "netinst" install CD.
Given that no floppy images are available for version 5 and that syslinux cannot handle the BIOS routines for CD drives on older machines, users of such a machine are faced with the need for additional hardware (machines and/or drives) or additional software (able to access the contents of the CD that linux cannot handle).
Getting an image of the CD onto a disk drive is not hard. Even PC-DOS can handle that. But once the image or copy resides on the drive the expected installation mechanism seems to be completely useless.
The documentation suggests that merely inserting the CD into a suitably configured machine will "autorun" the SETUP.EXE program.
Invoking SETUP.EXE in a "command prompt" window on a freshly installed instance of window~1 4.61 (AKA NT "pro" sp6a) yields in interesting series of errors. It first complains of the inability to find win32-loader.ini. The error message makes sense given that there is no such file. But there is a file named win32_lo.ini. Note that the name is not only truncated to 8.3, but it also has the wrong punctuation. Copying the existing file to the named reporte in the error message appears to solve that problem.
The subsequent error message indicates some fairly serious problems. A status dialogue box appears with a progress bar, the label "copy failed", and a "Show details" button. But the superimposed message dialogue box prevents the user from accessing the "Show details" button, so no details are available for me to report.
The error message is "Error: failed to copy E:\install.i386/vmlinuz to \debian\linux". Aborting the failed setup and continuing at the command line reveals the following facts: The file E:\install.386\vmlinuz exists and is copyable. But the native command "copy" cannot be used to perform the operation because (i) the forward slash shown in the error message is not a valid character in a file name or as a path separator, (ii) the directory \debian does not already exist, and (iii) if the directory \debian did exist the target \debian\linux is not accepted (cannot find path), but the target \debian is accepted.
Allowing the operating environment to "autorun" SETUP.EXE also fails for some of the same reasons. It first tries to display a readme file, but that yields an message box entitled "Problem with Shortcut" and the message:
"! Unable to open //F:/README.html"
Out of curiosity I would like to know where the developers obtained an operating environment in which they could open a file named "//F:/README.html".
By closing the message box and resuming the installation application one proceeds to the above-described copy failure.
This collection of multiple errors suggests to me that the setup program needs some minimal QA before it is distributed further.
FWIW,
Lee Winter
NP Engineering
Nashua, New Hampshire
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