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Re: squeeze d-i fails at grub install on raid1



On 20100402_120108, Stephen Powell wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Apr 2010 09:50:21 -0400 (EDT), Eric Dantan Rzewnicki wrote:
> > 
> > (NB: please Cc: me on replies as I'm not subscribed here)
> > 
> > This mail is to determine where to file a bug report. I'm not clear if
> > it is an mdadm, mbr, grub, lilo or d-i issue or the interaction of
> > those within d-i context.
> > 
> > I attempted to use the squeeze d-i to install a system on a raid1 pair.
> > The installation went fine up to the point of attempting to install a
> > bootloader to the mbr(s). Grub failed, both grub2 and legacy. lilo also
> > would not install.
> > 
> > I was installing via netboot and had this failure with both the
> > 2010-02-11 netboot.tar.gz release for amd64 as well as the 2010-03-30
> > amd64 snapshot.
> > 
> > I finally got a running squeeze on raid1 by using lenny's d-i to install
> > lenny, then upgrading (following '/msg dpkg lenny->squeeze' instructions
> > from #debian). This now works fully upgraded to grub2 and squeeze.
> > 
> > I need to proceed with using that system right now so can't really spend
> > time re-trying various installers on it. However, I will be building
> > another very similar system in a week or 2 (pending a PSU RMA). At that
> > time, I would like to know who to talk to in order to help with sorting
> > out the issues if they are still present.
> 
> Eric,
> 
> the next time you try a Squeeze install I would suggest using the latest
> "daily build" development version of the Debian installer.  That is the
> only thing I would trust at this point to do a direct install of Squeeze.
> The fact that you were able to install Lenny and upgrade successfully
> indicates that the problem is likely to be in the installer.
> 
> By the way, if you can somehow, by hook or by crook, get everything from
> /lib/modules/... used by the Debian Installer copied to your production
> system, that would be a good thing.  If you ever have to use the installer
> as a rescue system, having matching kernel modules on the hard disk
> makes things much easier in a rescue environment.  It is often difficult,
> if not impossible, to do a chroot or pivot_root without those modules.
> The last time I checked, the installer was using a 2.6.30 kernel, which is
> no longer available in the Debian archive.  I hope that by the time that
> Squeeze becomes the stable release the installer will be using the same
> kernel version as Squeeze does.  Test doing a rescue with a chroot and make
> sure it works before you mess with your boot loader.

For installing Squeeze, I think the business card CD is more useful
than the daily build. The business card CD has far less new stuff
burnt onto the media, only what is absolutely necessary to setting up
the local end of the link to the remote repository. This should be
quite stable, but it should work next week, or next month, in those
windows of opportunity when the remote repository contains working
versions of all the packages that you are interested in installing.

And I also prefer it to installing the current stable (Lenny) when
the purpose is to immediately dist-upgrade to testing (Squeeze).
The details of automating the dist-upgrade are rather slow to be
debugged as they are seldom used. Once per early adopter of testing.

-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon@mesanetworks.net


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