Indy diskless install feedback
Hi all,
because pongo.verwaltung.uni-mainz.de (see: w.d.o/ports/mips) has a
problem with its SCSI controller it was ofline for quite a long
time. Now I finaly found the time to try a diskless Debian install. It
worked -- nearly.
I used bootfloppies 3.0.15 from dists/woody/disks-mips/current, set up
a bootp/tftp server on an Debian i386 potato box and could easlily
start the initial install. I was supprised that bootfloppies support
the install on nfs-root. The scripts copied the base packages onto the
nfs-mounted root, but then dpkg --install failed, because it could not
get a lock on the nfs mounted filesystem. I remembered to have seen
this problem years ago on an i386 box with nfs root. the nfs-root code
did not support nfs locking.
So I tried to link /var/lib/dpkg/lock to a file in the ramdisk and
then I could install all the base packages. After restoring the
lockfile I could reboot from nfs and continue the installation. This
time the locking worked and I finished the installation without a
problem. I did not try to install an X-server.
However it took me some time find out the correct settings in the boot
prom. So here are the settings that worked for me:
setenv SystemPartition bootp():
setenv OSLoader linux.pongo
setenv OSLoadPartition /dev/nfs
setenv OSLoadOptions ip=bootp
Perhaps these hints could go into the Installation Howto.
Also pongo can be marked availlable on ports/mips again.
Christoph
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