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Bug#685681: marked as done (Mostly successful install on old Acer Aspire One ZG5 laptop)

Your message dated Sun, 25 Aug 2013 12:42:38 +0200
with message-id <201308251243.25305.holger@layer-acht.org>
and subject line dealing with old installation-reports
has caused the Debian Bug report #685681,
regarding Mostly successful install on old Acer Aspire One ZG5 laptop
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
685681: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=685681
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: installation-reports

Boot method: custom USB stick created from CD image (see below)
Image version: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/wheezy_di_beta1/i386/iso-cd/debian-wheezy-DI-b1-i386-netinst.iso
Date: Sun 19 Aug 2012 14:00 UTC to Mon 20 Aug 2012 11:00 UTC

Machine: Acer Aspire One ZG5 mini-laptop (bought around 2008)
Processor: Intel Atom N270, 1.6 GHz (arch i386)
Memory: 1.5 GB
Partitions:

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072931328 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142444 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002f43b

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *        2048      499711      248832   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2          501758   625141759   312320001    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5          501760   625141759   312320000   83  Linux

Output of lspci -knn:

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GSE Express Memory Controller Hub [8086:27ac] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GSE Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27ae] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: i915
00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a6] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller [8086:27d8] (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 1 [8086:27d0] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 2 [8086:27d2] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 3 [8086:27d4] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.3 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 4 [8086:27d6] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:27c8] (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.1 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:27c9] (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.2 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:27ca] (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.3 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:27cb] (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.7 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:27cc] (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:27b9] (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
00:1f.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) SATA Controller [IDE mode] [8086:27c4] (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: ata_piix
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family SMBus Controller [8086:27da] (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: i801_smbus
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: r8169
03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x / AR542x Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:001c] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. Device [105b:e008]
	Kernel driver in use: ath5k
04:00.0 System peripheral [0880]: JMicron Technology Corp. SD/MMC Host Controller [197b:2382]
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: sdhci-pci
04:00.2 SD Host controller [0805]: JMicron Technology Corp. Standard SD Host Controller [197b:2381]
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
04:00.3 System peripheral [0880]: JMicron Technology Corp. MS Host Controller [197b:2383]
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]
	Kernel driver in use: jmb38x_ms
04:00.4 System peripheral [0880]: JMicron Technology Corp. xD Host Controller [197b:2384]
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:015b]

Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it

Initial boot:           [ ] customized, see below
Detect network card:    [O]
Configure network:      [O]
Detect CD:              [ ] customized, see below
Load installer modules: [O]
Detect hard drives:     [O]
Partition hard drives:  [O] but slow (see below)
Install base system:    [O]
Clock/timezone setup:   [O] but only because my clock was correct (see below)
User/password setup:    [O]
Install tasks:          [O] but see note below
Install boot loader:    [E] because of multiple drives, see note below
Overall install:        [O]
Booting installed system: [E] keymap for passphrase wrong (see below)

Comments/Problems:

I was a bit hesitant about sending this report, since I used the
installer in an odd way. But I think this should not affect the things I
mention below.

(
Details in case someone is interested: I wanted to install from an USB
stick (the laptop does not have an optical drive) but could not find
signed versions of the USB stick kernel and initrd: for instance,
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-i386/current/images/
contains SHA256SUMS and MD5SUMS files, but no signatures for them. But
the CD images in
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/wheezy_di_beta1/i386/iso-cd/ have a
valid signature. So I thought I'd try making my own USB stick from the
CD image.

Extracting vmlinuz and initrd.gz from the install.386 directory on the
CD image and using the method described in
http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/ch04s03.html#usb-copy-flexible
did not quite work: I could not mount the ISO image, because the
initrd.gz does not appear to contain the "loop" module. Then I tried
making a second partition on the USB stick and writing the ISO image
there (cat *.iso >partition) and that worked - the installer was even
able to detect and mount it automatically! My syslinux.cfg had just
"default vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz priority=low" (looking at the isolinux
config files on the CD, that seems to be the kernel command line used
for a text-mode expert install).

I later noticed that (at least for i386) the "hdimage" and CD image
kernel are exactly the same, and the initrds seem to differ mostly in
the set of modules and in the scripts for mounting ISO image files vs.
detecting/ejecting CDs. I suppose this is not something to be changed
this late in the release cycle, but maybe in the long term you could
merge these two together and have the same kernel and initrd for all
install methods?
)

Anyway, back to the actual report. Most things went well in the end (and
all of the hardware on this laptop seems to work, as it did in squeeze),
but there were a few problems during installation. I also have a few
suggestions for polishing the UI below.

Note that I used the text-mode installer in expert mode (priority=low).

*****

"Partition hard drives": I used the guided partitioning with encrypted
LVM option (wanting to test it), with default partitions, and it worked
well, but took many hours (see bug #678015).

*****

"Clock/timezone setup": I selected "No" to the NTP question (as my
firewall blocks NTP), and expected to be asked to set the date and time
manually or at least to have been shown the time so I could check it -
but I was never even shown the time. I was also not asked whether the
RTC is in UTC or local time. Fortunately the clock was correct on this
machine (it ran Debian before), but I remember being bitten by this
previously when installing squeeze on more exotic devices - I've several
times got a file system with dates of new files in the 1980s.

(Hmm, actually, is there even a way to set the date from the installer
manually? The initrd does not appear to have the "date" command that I
normally use. Maybe you could include "date" in the busybox on the
installer initrd?)

Addendum: I got the "Is the system clock set to UTC" question as the
very last question asked by the install process. I guess that means that
if my system clock wasn't set to UTC, then all dates on the files
written by the installer would be incorrect because they were in the
wrong timezone? (I.e., shouldn't this question be asked at the start, at
least if NTP is not used?)

*****

"Install tasks": There is a "Debian desktop environment" task which
installed GNOME as I didn't select anything else in the bootloader. But
why is the desktop selected in the bootloader while other tasks are
selected in a dialog here? I.e., wouldn't it be more logical to select
all installed software here, so we would have separate entries for the
GNOME, KDE, XFCE and LXDE desktops in the task selection dialog and not
in the installer bootloader? (You can of course still have the same
default and even prevent installing more than one in this dialog, if you
want to. I just think it strange to have such a user-centric question
asked in the boot loader, while the other questions in the boot loader
are either hardware-specific or for the installer itself.)

Another suggestion: maybe the names of the tasks could be a bit more
specific (at least in expert mode): which "Web server", which "SQL
database", what is a "File server" (NFS or SMB or something else?), and
so on.

*****

Still "Install tasks": There seems to be a dependency problem regarding
the "Print server" task. I did not at first understand why the "Print
server" task was selected by default; then I thought it meant CUPS and
was on by default for printing to a local printer. I deselected it
(since I won't be printing from this test installation), but got the
CUPS server installed and running anyway.

I used aptitude on the installed system to find out what happened:

# aptitude search print-server
p   task-print-server               - Print server
# aptitude show task-print-server
Package: task-print-server
State: not installed
Version: 3.11
[...]
Depends: tasksel, cups, cups-client, cups-bsd
Recommends: foomatic-db-engine, printer-driver-all, hplip, hp-ppd,
            openprinting-ppds
[...]
# aptitude why cups
i   task-laptop Recommends bluetooth
i A bluetooth   Recommends bluez-cups
i A bluez-cups  Depends    cups

So it seems that the Laptop task ends up installing CUPS anyway, even
though the user specifically did not want to install the "Print
server"... (This laptop doesn't even have Bluetooth hardware.)

But I guess I wouldn't have gotten CUPS if I had deselected Print server
and not had a laptop. If so, maybe a less advanced user might deselect
Print server, thinking that it would make his local printers available
to other computers on the LAN, and then wonder why printing doesn't
work. So maybe it would be better to rename Print server to e.g.,
"Support locally connected printers" and remove the indirect dependency
on CUPS from the Laptop task? (And maybe have a separate task for a
print server that is actually visible on the network like the other
"server" tasks?)

*****

"Install boot loader:" I got the MBR question "It seems that this new
installation is the only operating system on this computer. [...]
Install the GRUB boot leader to the master boot record?"

But it is not the only operating system: I was installing on an external
USB hard drive (using all of that), and have a Debian squeeze
installation (that I don't want to touch in this test) on the internal
drive. I first answered "Yes" thinking that it meant the MBR of the
drive I was installing to (having selected to use this drive when
starting the installation), but it actually installed GRUB on the
internal drive that I did not want to touch at all! (I hope it still
boots...)

Then I restarted this step from the menu and answered "No" to the MBR
question. I then got the question "Device for boot loader installation"
where I was really expecting a list of the possible choices including
drive capacities and vendor names etc. (as is done in the initial
questions asking which drive to install to and in guided partitioning).
I knew that I could use the shell to "head /sys/block/sd*/device/vendor"
to see which drive is which, but I don't think a less advanced user who
is installing to a computer with multiple drives could do that...

I don't know where the installer got the idea of installing GRUB on the
internal drive, as I hadn't used that for anything at all up to this
point. (Does it always use /dev/sda or something?) I have three drives
on this machine:
 - sda: the internal drive (PATA, I think)
 - sdb: the external USB hard drive that I was installing to
 - sdc: the USB memory stick I booted the installer from
(I used the BIOS boot menu to boot from the memory stick, and was trying
to install GRUB on the USB hard drive so that I could use the BIOS to
select which drive to boot from and just remove the USB drive completely
when I'm done with testing.)

I think the MBR question should at least tell me which drive it is
writing to (if I have several), especially if it isn't the one I have
been using thus far. Perhaps the question could be "Use the MBR of
/dev/sda (<Drive vendor>, <capacity>)? If you select No, you will be
asked for the device to install to.". Or if you can make a list of
choices as in the guided partitioning, maybe remove the Yes/No MBR
question entirely and just give the list of choices, with the default
being whatever the "Yes" option does now.

Besides this UI problem, why didn't the installer detect my other Debian
installation? (I initially thought that it was because it didn't even
look at anything other than the drive it was installing to - and assumed
that it would write to the MBR of that drive.) The existing Debian
installation is a standard installation of Debian squeeze using the
squeeze installer, with encrypted LVM.

Partitions of the internal drive (a small 8GB SSD) are very similar to
what the new installer created on the external drive:

Disk /dev/sda: 8069 MB, 8069677056 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 981 cylinders, total 15761088 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0001b475

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      499711      248832   83  Linux
/dev/sda2          501758    15759359     7628801    5  Extended
/dev/sda5          501760    15759359     7628800   83  Linux

Shouldn't the installer notice the partition IDs, or that /dev/sda1 is a
normal unencrypted ext2 partition (just like the one the new installer
created as /dev/sdb1 on the USB drive)? For instance, "file -s
/dev/sda1" recognises it as "sticky Linux rev 1.0 ext2 filesystem data".

*****

"Booting installed system": After rebooting into the installed system, I
had the problem that my passphrase for encrypted LVM was not accepted.
After a while, I figured out that the problem was that the keymap was
wrong: I had selected the Finnish keyboard layout in the installer, and
typed the passphrase using it, but the boot process apparently had not
set the keymap before asking for the passphrase!

I then typed it assuming that I have a US keymap, and then it worked (I
didn't use characters that are not present in a US keyboard). The keymap
was correct in the installed system (both in X and in text consoles), so
I assume this is an initramfs problem.

*****

In summary, the installation went quite smoothly for an advanced user
who was expecting to have problems (because of testing a beta version).
I think the last two problems are the most serious ones.

Should I make separate bug reports about the individual problems (manual
clock setting, desktop selection in tasksel, print server task
dependency, grub installing on wrong drive, wrong keymap for passphrase
in installed system)?

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
reassign 701201 src:linux
retitle 701201 libata.atapi_passthru16=0 is needed by some hardware
forcemerge 690985 686954
thanks

Hi,

thank you for submitting installation reports, much appreciated.

I read through all the bugs mentioned here (and I'm sure they were read by 
several people at the time they were submitted) and am closing them now as/if
- they (finally) indicated success and/or
- I know from first hand experience that the functionality is working in 
Wheezy and/or
- they only contained very little information and/or
- they contained user errors and/or
- they were caused by broken hardware and/or
- they have been from a development phase where things were not stable and/or
- they are quite old (and thus likely fixed today) and/or
- moreinfo was asked and not given.

If I've closed a bug incorrectly please do reply (it's easy to reopen and I'll 
do if requested) or just file a new one - thats often better, as the bug log 
will be clearer and shorter and not contain cruft.


cheers,
        Holger

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