Bug#220163: installation-reports: netboot install attempt via PXE
Package: installation-reports
Version: netboot daily image from 2003-11-10
Severity: normal
Tags: d-i
INSTALL REPORT
Debian-installer-version: daily netboot image from <http://people.debian.org/~sjogren/d-i/images/2003-11-10/>
uname -a: Linux (none) 2.4.22-1-386 #9 Sat Oct 4 14:30:39 EST 2003 i686 unknown
Date: Tue Nov 11 01:03:47 EST 2003
Method: netboot via PXE
Machine: Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop
Processor: Intel Celeron 2GHz
Memory: 256MB
Root Device: N/A
Root Size/partition table: N/A
Output of lspci: /bin/sh: lspci: not found
Base System Installation Checklist:
Initial boot worked: [O]
Configure network HW: [E]
Config network: [ ]
Detect CD: [ ]
Load installer modules: [ ]
Detect hard drives: [ ]
Partition hard drives: [ ]
Create file systems: [ ]
Mount partitions: [ ]
Install base system: [ ]
Install boot loader: [ ]
Reboot: [ ]
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Comments/Problems:
Alright, here are the highlights of how this install went:
0) OK, after much struggling (and dealing with my nemesis error message
'VFS: Cannot open root device "" or 3a:04') I managed to get the d-i
netboot image to work via PXE. For posterity (and the installation
guide) the magic kernel options I needed to make this work are
"ramdisk_size=8192 root=/dev/ram0". If anyone would like assistance
setting up a PXE testbed or copies of various configs I use please don't
hesitate to ask.
1) Install boots into the main menu. Interface looks alot snazzier than
the old text interface, however the line-drawing characters are all
messed up on my terminal (corners are displayed as '>', &c.) Known bug?
2) Picking "Choose language" doesn't get very far. This is what I can
piece together from syslog:
DEBUG: Menu item 'languagechooser' selected
DEBUG: configure languagechooser, status: 4
WARNING **: Configuring 'languagechooser' failed with error code 1
WARNING **: Menu item 'languagechooser' failed.
Any ideas? Known unfiled bug? File a new bug against languagechooser?
3) After doing 'Select a Keyboard Layout', I chose 'Detect network
hardware'. This generated the following two (fatal looking) errors:
a. An error occured while running 'modprobe -v floppy false`.
b. An error occured while running 'modprobe -v ide-cd false`.
Since this is a netboot install, these errors should not be fatal.
4) When finally presented with a list of ethernet drivers to pick from,
the requisite driver for this laptop -- b44 -- is missing. I tried
switching to vc2 and doing 'modprobe -v b44', but this fails since the
module doesn't exist on the image. How do we get it added?
Well, that's as far as I got. Hope this helps!
Joe
PS - This particular laptop doesn't have a serial port, so all
output/error messages are hand-typed and subject to typos, &c.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux laptop 2.4.22-1-686 #6 Sat Oct 4 14:09:08 EST 2003 i686
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
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