CD install of Woody
Thanks to copyleft.co.nz for a set of current Woody CDs.
The boot floppies version on these CDs is 3.0.19-2002-02-07.
I've been testing the install using these CDs and I've run into a problem
with the installer.
If the kernel and drivers are installed from the CD, when it comes time to
install the base system, the attempt to mount the CD fails because the CD
is still mounted from the kernel/drivers install. Moving to VC-2, it was
still not possible to unmount the CD as it says it is busy.
I went back and re-ran the install using floppies to install the kernel
and Drivers. Now the install was able to mount the CD, but I still could
not install the base system. Once a path to the Packages file was found,
the installer reported that the Packages.gz file was corrupt. The next
screen says that it is installing the Packages file (no .gz) and hangs
with no further progress.
Asside from these two pieces of broken behavior, the path selection for
finding the Kernel and Drivers is awful, and the same process is used to
find the path for the Base install.
The first step is to provide a screen with a text field, asking for the
path. Now most folks, myself included aren't going to know how to
construct this path string. (do you included /instmnt in the path? where
does the path need to end?)
After putting something into the field that fails, the next screen offers
two options: construct a list of alternatives, or enter a manual path
which I assume takes you back to that first screen. Asking for a list of
alternatives provides one path.
I know for a fact that I have argued about this POC from the time of the
Potato release. During a CD install there is no reason for this useless
dialog with the user. The installer can find the objects needed on its own
with no intervention by the user. The code is all there, just skip these
two dialogs and act as though the "contruct a list of paths" option was
chosen, then take the first path found and use it.
I am sorry to say that, although the boot floppies boot just fine, the
installer is severely broken for the CD install.
Waiting is,
Dwarf
--
_-_-_-_-_- Author of "Dwarf's Guide to Debian GNU/Linux" _-_-_-_-_-_-
_- _-
_- aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (850) 656-9769 _-
_- Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road _-
_- e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net Tallahassee, FL 32308 _-
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_-_-_-_-_- Released under the GNU Free Documentation License _-_-_-_-
available at: http://www.polaris.net/~dwarf/
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