Re: netinst testing: can't work on less than 686-pae, no way to install linux-image-486

[Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com>]

Hi David,

On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 08:14:10PM +0100, David Gerard wrote:
>[Apologies if this is not the right place to send this, emailing
>maintainer is about the last resort listed on
>http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting ]

Thanks, this is a reasonable place to report this bug. :-)

>I attempted to install testing netinst (downloaded earlier today) from
>a USB key on a machine with a Geode processor.
>
>During installation, the system came up several times telling me that
>the machine could not run 686-pae, and that I must install
>linux-image-486 or the system would not work. GRUB also failed to
>work, leaving an unbootable system.
>
>(I would type in the error word for word but I can't get it to come up again.)

OK, fair enough. The Geode does need the -486 kernel flavour
AFAIK. And, looking at the contents of the image there *is* a 486
flavour included
(pool/main/l/linux-2.6/linux-image-3.0.0-1-486_3.0.0-1_i386.deb). Maybe
the detection code from d-i isn't picking it properly for a geode.

>Reproducibility: try to install testing netinst on a Geode.
>
>Expected: it would at least install the required kernel itself.
>
>Workaround: none found.
>
>Hope this is enough to be of use.

Thanks. If it's not too much trouble, it would be helpful if you can
try the install again and do a manual installation of
linux-image-3.0.0-1-486_3.0.0-1_i386.deb to see if that fixes the
problem, at least as a workaround.

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve@einval.com
< liw> everything I know about UK hotels I learned from "Fawlty Towers"