Bug#700175: wheezy installation issues
Package: installation-reports
Boot method: netinst CD
Image version: http://caesar.acc.umu.se/cdimage/wheezy_di_beta4/amd64/iso-cd/debian-wheezy-DI-b4-amd64-netinst.iso
Date: 2013-02-08 ~10pm to 2013-02-09 ~ 8am
Machine: Dell Inspiron 7520
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3632QM CPU @ 2.20GHz, 2201 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
Memory: 8.00 GB
(df and lspci output after installation)
$ df -Tl
Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs rootfs 42284288 3697076 36439272 10% /
udev devtmpfs 10240 0 10240 0% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 805056 776 804280 1% /run
/dev/disk/by-uuid/7a434279-a151-4c86-bb97-7b4ca48b0084 ext4 42284288 3697076 36439272 10% /
tmpfs tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
tmpfs tmpfs 3258320 84 3258236 1% /run/shm
/dev/sda1 vfat 507904 50120 457784 10% /boot/efi
$ lspci -knn
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller [8086:0154] (rev 09)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port [8086:0151] (rev 09)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
Kernel driver in use: i915
00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller [8086:1e31] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
00:16.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 [8086:1e3a] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
00:1a.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 [8086:1e2d] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller [8086:1e20] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 [8086:1e10] (rev c4)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 [8086:1e12] (rev c4)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 [8086:1e26] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation HM77 Express Chipset LPC Controller [8086:1e57] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
00:1f.2 RAID bus controller [0104]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] [8086:282a] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
Kernel driver in use: ahci
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller [8086:1e22] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Cape Verde [Radeon HD 7700M Series] [1002:682f]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
07:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 07)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0572]
Kernel driver in use: r8169
08:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 2230 [8086:0887] (rev c4)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 2230 BGN [8086:4462]
Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Initial boot: [E]
Detect network card: [O*]
Configure network: [O]
Detect CD: [O]
Load installer modules: [O]
Detect hard drives: [O]
Partition hard drives: [E]
Install base system: [O]
Clock/timezone setup: [O*]
User/password setup: [O]
Install tasks: [O]
Install boot loader: [E]
Overall install: [O]
Comments/Problems:
When booting, GRUB complained "error: "prefix" is not set".
Then the display switched to distorted/repeated image of Tux, with both the image and all text completely garbled. Tried "ESC" as suggested in section 5.1.7 of the Installation Guide ( http://www.debian.org/releases/testing/amd64/ch05s01.html.en ) as well as H then Enter. Neither of these gave me a text prompt that I could discern, and if I hit Enter at all, the image would change, then switch to black with garbled white text, and then the Caps Lock light would start to flash, and even Ctrl+Alt+Del did nothing. I was able to resolve this issue by switching from UEFI to "Legacy Boot" in the Dell A05 BIOS (rev 2012-08-13).
The next minor hiccup was that I needed non-free wifi drivers for Intel(R) Centrino(R) Wireless-N 2230.
When I got to the partitioning step, I tried to shrink an NTFS partition to create empty space, and got an error. I then booted into Windows, defragged the disk again, rebooted to the wheezy installer, but got the same error. I switched back to Windows, used Disk Manager to resize the partition. Also created an unformatted partition to reserve space, leaving 50GB empty. Rebooted to the wheezy installer, chose guided partitioning. I again got an error when the changes were applied.
At this point I switched to a 6.0.6 (squeeze) netinst install CD. squeeze didn't seem to like my wireless card, so I hunted down an ethernet cable. When I got to the partitioning step, I discovered that the new partitions had been created (1 MB for "grubbios", large partition for /, and 2.2GB for swap) but apparently were not formatted. Used manual partitioning to select type and mount point for / and swap, but I couldn't figure out what type the grub partition was supposed to be. squeeze installer had no problem with partitioning and formatting.
However, the squeeze installer did not detect my Windows installation, and I didn't want to overwrite the MBR in case I wouldn't be able to recover Windows, so first I tried installing GRUB to my USB drive, which didn't work, then tried to figure out the device name of the root partition through the shell, and then finally tried to go back to the partitioning step, which caused the squeeze installer to hang starting the partitioner.
I switched back to the wheezy installer (still using ethernet), since the partitions had already been created. I chose to install to an unclean target. This failed in debbootstrap: "line 633: sed: not found". At this point, even though I could choose other steps, the installer was unable to start any other step, including "Abort the installation." Unable to restart using Ctrl+Alt+Del.
Restarted the wheezy installation, chose to reformat the / partition. No matter what I tried, the grub installation failed. Rebooted into rescue mode, found this page online and tried to make sense of the linked pages http://askubuntu.com/questions/221311/grub-errors-dual-boot-windows-8-ubuntu-12-10 , looked at the partition table with parted, and finally followed instructions at http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article51/debian-efi , which caused the boot loader to insist that there were no bootable hard disks.
At this point, I noticed an option to boot the wheezy install disk with UEFI (by default it was booting with legacy BIOS), so I tried that. Used rescue mode to run "grub-install /dev/sda" Still unable to boot anything.
When booting the install disk with UEFI, I noticed the menu is different, so I thought I'd try redoing the installation again (with the wheezy installer), this time booting with UEFI. Deleted the partitions created by the previous installation. The installer complained that there was no UEFI boot partition -- I assumed that was /sda1, so I changed the "use as" to "UEFI boot partition."
And that worked! I can now boot either Debian or Windows via the F12 boot menu. Debian uses UTC time while Windows uses local time, but that might be due to the installer not recognizing the Windows installation.
I guess the moral of the story is that if I had just turned off secure boot, turned on "Load Legacy Option Rom," and then booted from the CD selecting the UEFI option rather than the legacy option, everything would have worked from the beginning. After installing, the "Load Legacy Option Rom" can disabled, but if Secure Boot is enabled, it always boots Windows.
Hope that's helpful,
Ben
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