Steffen Schwigon wrote: > [ I'm new to 64bit, but read amd64 HOWTO and the like ]
Excellent! > I want to setup a Debian/Sarge-like system on my Athlon64fx. I tried > an install of "sarge" with a Debian-Installer-CD. The install itself > looked good, but it couldn't write a correct boot loader, neither GRUB > nor LILO. The MBR became corrupted. That does not sound good. But it looks to indicate a problem. Why couldn't it write the MBR? If there was a failure then that is bad. But since the installer is used by many people successfully I don't think there is a problem there. More likely something on your end. > The questions: > > 1. Is the recommended method an installation via bootstrapping > into a chroot based on a classic 32bit system? No. If you install in a 32-bit system you end up with a 32-bit system. You *must* use a 64-bit kernel to install the 64-bit system. There are two "recommended methods". One is to use the debian-installer as you mentioned that you did. The other is to use debootstrap and to run the same thing the debian-installer does but instead run those manually. This gives finer grained control. But the end result should be basically the same. > (The Installer ran good, maybe I just forgot something. The 32bit > installer installed GRUB without problems.) I am wondering if perhaps the amd64 debian-installer you used was a bad snapshot. I suggest trying a different snapshot from a different day. Things are not completely stable. Some things are broken from day to day. > 2. After the broken MBR, I wanted to boot from the install CD with > parameter "root=/dev/...". That didn't work. I tried different > names: /dev/hda6, /dev/sda6, /dev/discs/disc0/part6, but always get > kernel panic "Unable to mount root fs". Once you have booted look at /proc/partitions to see what is available to mount. Just thrashing around is not very efficient. The error "Unable to mount root fs" is almost always a problem with the modules loaded in the initrd (initial ram disk) image. Make sure that was loaded correctly too. I would use the DFS disk mentioned in the howto. It boots grub. There you can specify these parameters at boot time. > Is this possible in any way? It seems to need some modules for my > SATA harddisc. So maybe it won't work with the kernel on CD. It definitely should work for you. It works for me on my SATA system. I am more concerned about the errors you mentioned when installing. That should not happen. So I think the root of the problem lies there. Bob