Package: installation-reports
Boot method: live usb
Image version: http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/mini.iso
Date: 29th October 2013
Machine: Dell Inspirion N5110
Processor:
Memory:
Partitions: left to the installer to do
Output of lspci -knn (or lspci -nn):
Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Initial boot: [O]
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: [E]
Clock/timezone setup: [O]
User/password setup: [O]
Install tasks: [O]
Install boot loader: [E]
Overall install: [E]
Comments/Problems: I encountered several problems that I managed to overcome, and I'm writting just one ticket. Firstly, during the expert install I selected Serbia and opted for Serbian mirrors. Trying to install Jessie resulted in an error message to the effect that the package signatures are not in order. Switching to Wheezy reported an error saying that it was unable to install the kernel, but that I can choose to proceed without one if I know what I'm doing. I have abandoned the expert install at this point. After that I went with the quick and dirty route, which resulted in the Grub bootloader being installed onto the USB stick (mounted as sda) instead of the hdd (sdb). Having booted from the usb I manged to install Grub onto the hdd (which was now mounted as sda for some reason). I marked down the partitioning scheme because the automated paritioning of a 320GiB HDD (with the /usr, /home, /tmp and /var dirs having their own sepperate partitions) resulted in a 300MB temp and 300MB rootfs paritition which proved inadequate the 1st or 2nd time I tried to install a custom package using dpkg -i (since skype and the like prefer /opt for some reason).
Like I said - I managed to overcome all of this and get a working OS, but not without a lot of needless hassle. I have a little earlier linux experience which helped me figure out just what exactly went wrong. I can't imagine someone new to Linux as an OS or to the Debian distro would put up with all this. Seriously, at the very least the installer should be able to figure out where to install the bootloader and be able to come up with a practical partitioning scheme.