Re: Bug#512740: Sparc disk labels broken on LDOM and Parallel installs

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

On Tuesday 09 February 2010, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 08, 2010 at 10:04:05PM +0000, Jurij Smakov wrote:
> > My main concern is whether it affects installer in any adverse way, so
> > if you could arrange for an installer image to be built with the
> > modified parted, we could do some testing. I don't have access to a
> > machine which supports LDOMs, but I could at least confirm that it
> > does not introduce any regressions.
>
> Personally, I'm not very proficient in d-i (read: not at all), so I'm
> getting -boot into the loop forwarding your request, for help. Bottom
> line for d-i, to test the patch proposed to fix #512740, we need a d-i
> sparc image to check for regression on sparc. The patch is attached for
> your convenience, see bug log for full context.

I've read through the patch, but must admit I don't understand it. What 
seems to be missing is *how* exactly it fixes the problem.

And somehow I doubt this patch stands on its own. I would think that it is 
a requirement for patches in other packages (such as partman). If that is 
true, then testing the patch in isolation is not much use (as applying it 
on its own would not fix the reported issue anyway).

Also, I question the definition of (unused?) tags for usr, var, home etc. 
What's the purpose of that? How's that supposed to be used? Does it mean 
you're not allowed to put e.g. /srv on a separate partition as there's no 
tag for it?

More porter input is definitely needed here.

Below are instructions for building a custom D-I image that includes a 
patched libparted and partman. It's not that hard.

Cheers,
FJP

0) preparation
- check out D-I SVN
- install build deps for debian-installer

1) build patched parted
- build parted with the patch (preferably with increased package version)
- install the lib and -dev packages
- suggestion: install 'parted' and test that before continuing

2) build partman against the patched libparted
- cd to packages/partman/partman-base
- increase package version ('dch')
- debuild

3) build a D-I image
- cd to installer/build
- cp ../../partman/*.udeb ./localudebs
- cp all (lib)parted udebs (from the first step) to ./localudebs
- echo "partman-base" >./pkg-lists/local
  # This will include the custom udebs in the D-I initrd and thus ensure
  # they'll be used instead of the versions in the archive.
- make reallyclean; make build_netboot
  # Instead of build_netboot you can also use build_miniiso.

4) test
- boot the installer from the image you'll find under ./dest