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Package: installation-reports
Debian-installer-version: 4th April from
http://people.debian.org/~vorlon/d-i/images/daily/netboot/
Date: 4th April
Method: Netboot and network install
Machine: Alphastation 500/233
Processor: EV5 233MHz
Memory: 96MB
Root Device: SCSI, qlogicisp
Base System Installation Checklist:
Initial boot worked: [E]
Configure network HW: [O]
Config network: [O]
Detect CD: [ ]
Load installer modules: [E]
Detect hard drives: [E]
Partition hard drives: [O]
Create file systems: [O]
Mount partitions: [E]
Install base system: [ ]
Install boot loader: [ ]
Reboot: [ ]
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Comments/Problems:
The netboot images on the daily build don't work - we don't ship a
bootloader that can netboot separate images (and, as far as I can tell,
we don't actually ship a bootloader that can netboot at all...). It's
impossible to cross-compile netbooting alpha kernels on a 32-bit system
due to breakage in the objstrip utility, and even on an alpha they
currently don't seem to build (undefined references to printk in some of
the lib files - I think the build system assumes that it can use the
kernel lib.a without all of the kernel, which fails in this case).
Hacking around that I generated a kernel and libc, and could then
netboot this with (remembered, so possibly slightly wrong)
boot -fl "root=/dev/rd/0 ramdisk_size=16384 init=/linuxrc devfs=mount,da
console=ttyS0,9600 rw" ewa0
which then launched the installer. Everything then went fine up to
mirror selection - the.earth.li was offered as a mirror despite not
carrying anything other than i386+source, and so failed. Once that was
rectified, the install continued until partitioning. Here I was given a
confusing message telling me I could automatically or manually partition
a disk, but was only given the opportunity to manually edit it. Choosing
this gave me the same menu. After dropping to a shell, I found that this
was because the qlogicisp driver was not available, but is required for
this hardware. I retrieved this from the kernel package manually and
inserted it, at which point partitioning worked fine. The installer then
failed to mount / - I believe that this was because the ext3 module
failed to insmod (probably due to me compiling the kernel with a
slightly different version of gcc to the one used to build the modules.
I used the modules from the mirror with my own kernel, which was an
invitation for breakage). At this point I gave up due to time
constraints - any other problems would be likely to be alpha-wide rather
than netboot specific anyway.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
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--- Begin Message ---
We are closing this installation report for one of the following
reasons:
- it was reported with a pre-lenny version of Debian
Installer.
- indications in the installation report give the feeling that
the reported problem waslying in another software, unrelated to
D-I, which we can't easily identify.
- indications in the installation report suggest that it may have been
fixed in a more recent version of a D-I component
- it was successful and we forgot closing it..:-)
- it has no information we consider useful
The D-I team is currently in the process of cleaning out the old spool
of installation reports that haven't bene processed yet.
In case you think that the problem you reported has chances to be
still present, please reiterate your installation test with
a more recent image of D-I, if you're in position of doing this.
You'll find daily builds at
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer. We recommend you choose
the netboot image, in the "daily builds section", then choose to
install "squeeze" when prompted.
If some problems are found, please report them with a new bug sent
against installation-reports.
Many thanks for your understanding and your help improving Debian,
past and present.
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