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Re: Bug#2341: Install problems



> Date: Fri, 16 Feb 96 22:12 PST
> From: bruce@pixar.com (Bruce Perens)
> Subject: Re:  Bug#2341: Install problems
> 
> From: dhs@firefly.com (David H. Silber)
> > I intended to load up the current Debian 1.1 candidate, but what I
> > got from unstable/disks-i386/* was the 0.93 installation set.
> 
> I'm currently building the 1.1 floppy set. One doesn't exist until I'm
> done. Tonight I'm working on building a chopped-down shared C library
> so that I can fit more on the floppy. I haven't communicated to anyone
> that there was a 1.1 floppy set - I guess you just assumed one was there.

Well, I've been busy and I knew that a lot of work had been done on an the
elf release, so yes, I did assume.  (oops)


> > Since floppy_merge ignores interrupts
> 
> Huh? I just looked at the code and there is nothing touching signals.
> It might be that the interrupt character of the tty is set wrong or
> that the shell script is changing how interrupts are handled and that
> is being inherited. Is it just hanging or is floppy-merge saying something?

It just hangs.  Generally, it seems to hang about half way through the first
floppy.  After I restart (using the -v option to cpio so that I can see
what is going on) the first half of the first floppy does not get loaded
onto the hard disk, because those files already exist.  After those files
have gone through cpio it starts to find files that it needs to write to
the hard disk and it does so -- until it hangs again.  Hmm, perhaps it is
NOT floppy_merge after all.  Still, the problem with not being able to
break out of the pipeline forces me to reboot the system (using the reset
button, ctrl-alt-del does not work at this point) in order to restart the
pipeline.


> > When I ran: floppy_merge /dev/fd0 | gunzip | cpio --extract -v
> > manually, it seemed to be more successful than when I restarted
> > the load from the installation menu.
> 
> How much memory on that system? Is it a 386 by chance?
> There seems to be a timing problem with the floppy driver that hits
> 386 systems. There might be something in fdutils that tunes it.

System characteristics:
	386DX (33MHz?)
	8 Meg RAM
	40 Meg HD
	3.5" floppy drive
	NE2000-clone Ethernet card (10Base-2 -- shares the wire with
		two other Debian Linux systems)


> > On both installation attempts, when I rebooted with the custom boot
> > disk, fsck found a corrupted file system (the one & only on that
> > machine) and automatically corrected it.  Are we unmounting the
> > file system(s) when we reboot?  Are we running sync?
> 
> I think this might be related to your problem above. Are you sure it's
> floppy reads going wrong and not hard disk writes?

No, I'm not.  Now that you mention it, hard disk writes are more likely
to be the problem.  (See the above description of my load attempts.)


> > I could build a boot floppy with elf enabled on my main system, but not
> > everyone has that option.
> 
> Don't worry, that will be taken care of.

Thank you.


> > An attempt at an elf-only installation set.
> 
> On the way.

Thank you.


> > A network installation option.
> 
> I can probably replace the 3 base disks with FTP. I have not tried
> this yet, and it's going to require moving around some of the set-up
> stuff.

Would NFS be better?  Either would work for me.


> > Also, there are removable-media SCSI drives.
> 
> Yes, it would be simple enough to make that work.

Also, how about PCMCIA-based peripherals:
	CD-ROM drives
	Type III PCMCIA hard disks
	PCMCIA SCSI adaptors with fixed or removable media attached
(Boy, I want everything, don't I?  :-)  )


> > A second virtual console.
> 
> Tiny init just got bigger. I'll look at it - it probably won't add more
> than a few hundred bytes.

Sorry, <hangs head in embarrassment> I don't _mean_ to be causing trouble.


> > Floppy_merge should not ignore interrupts.  If the interrupt
> > that it does not mask is not ^C, then the user should be
> > informed as to haw to break out of it.
> 
> Is it prompting you for disks you don't have, or just hanging?
> If it's hanging, it's in the kernel.

Just hanging.


> > Fix whatever is causing fsck to complain when the system is
> > booted for the first time.
> 
> That hasn't happened here. What kind of error is it?

I'm not sure.  I just discovered that fsck boot-time messages are not
appearing in any of the files under /var/log.  I can attempt to recreate
the message, but I'm not going to go through the pain of reloading the
system (again) unless you request it.


> Bruce Perens <Bruce@Pixar.com>

Thanks,
David

-- 
  David H. Silber     dhs@firefly.com     Project: Debian GNU/Linux (dbackup)
  <http://www.access.digex.net/~dhs/>     Wanted:  Spare time.

			     Programmer for hire.


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