Re: my experiences trying to install Etch
D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> I was trying to install the Debian for the first time and ran into several
> issues.
Welcome!
> I would send this to installlation-reports but I seem to need a
> running Debian system for that.
No, you don't. There is a program called 'reportbug' that will help you
to send a bug report or installation report, but the actual report is
just an e-mail with certain formal sections, so you could use any e-mail
program to send one.
Instructions can be found here
http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting
> Can anybody suggests how I should proceed? (5) is a fairly serious block.
>
> Context:
>
> Me: long-time Linux user. This is my first Debian install.
>
> Computer: eMachine T2625
> - Atlon XP 2600+
> - 640M RAM
> - 8G hard disk (small, not original, not previously partitioned)
>
> Installation medium:
> debian-40r0-i386-DVD-1.iso
>
> I used the GUI installer.
>
> Issues:
>
> 1) it wasn't clearly documented that even though there is a sequence
> of 3 DVDs avaialble for download (for i386), only the first is
> needed for (many?) installs.
Where did you get your download from?
You don't even need the first DVD. All you need is a ca. 100-200 MB
CD-image with the installer components.
The first item on debian's download page [1] is "Download a minimal
bootable CD image".
Where did you find your information that you have to download 3 DVDs in
order to install debian?
> 2) I saw no published checksums for the .iso files. I find checksums
> are a nice confidence-building measure.
They are provided. All mirrors I ever used provide them in the same
directory as the iso files.
> 3) When I booted the installation DVD on my internal DVD writer, all
> went well until this step failed, even on retry:
>
> Load installer components from CD:
> loading jfsutils-udeb
>
> I avoided this problem by starting over, and booting from the
> internal DVD reader.
>
> 4) For partitioning, I selected "Guided - use entire disk" and
> "Separate /home partition".
>
> - it allocated less swap than there is main memory. At least at
> one time, swap had to be at least as big as main memory or the memory
> would not be used.
>
> - I was allowed to second-guess a number of partition attributes
> proposed, but not the partition size, perhaps the most important
> choice.
Debian provides some generic defaults. Since you seem to know what
partitioning scheme is right for you, why don't you just select 'manual'
and enter the information yourself? I find myself never using the
default values for any installation of any OS. That includes any
installation since the days when I had to install Win95 from its ca.
*30 floppy disks*!
> 5) far into the package install, just after X11 configuration, the GUI
> stopped with
>
> Configuring cupsys
> Installation step failed
> An installation step failed. You can try to run the failing
> item again from the menu, or skip it and choose something else. The
> failing step is: Select and install software
>
> Retrying the whole "select and install software" step seems
> brutal.
Why? Debian's apt system keeps track of all (successfully) installed
packages. Just because installation of one package fails doesn't mean
that all others are unusable.
That it fails to install software is possibly a bug, but to help you we
need a little more information:
- which version of debian are you installing? Stable 4.0 (aka 'etch')?
- which task did you select at the end of the base install (desktop,
print server, etc)?
You should know that you could skip the last step all together, not
selecting any predefined tasks. Then you would install the required
software 'by hand'. "aptitude install gnome" would install all required
to run gnome etc. It's a bit more work, but it would give you much more
flexibility to work around such issues manually.
HTH,
Johannes
[1] http://www.de.debian.org/CD/
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