Package: installation-reports Severity: important
-- Package-specific info: Boot method: USB stick Image version: Lenny RC1 amd64 netinst (http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/lenny_di_rc1/amd64/iso-cd/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso) Date: <Date and time of the install> Machine: Athlon X2 5200+ desktop Base System Installation Checklist: [O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it Initial boot: [O] Detect network card: [O] Configure network: [O] Detect CD: [O] Load installer modules: [O] Detect hard drives: [O] Partition hard drives: [O] Install base system: [O] Clock/timezone setup: [O] User/password setup: [O] Install tasks: [O] Install boot loader: [E] Overall install: [E] Comments/Problems: Up to the rebooting stage the install went wonderfully (my respect to the developers). However, rebooting into the installed system failed, as the initrd incorrectly identified the root device. As it turned out, the root device specified on Lilo's kernel command line (root=fd02 in my case) was incorrect. The initrd /init script interprets this argument as a hex value (0xfd02), translating it into major and minor device numbers according to the formula MAJOR = ARG / 256, MINOR = ARG % 256. It then uses mknod to create /dev/root using these major/minor values (253,2 in my case). However, the _real_ root device (/dev/mapper/lenny-root_crypt in my case) has a major/minor of 254,2, which is one major number higher than the value specified. So to bump the major number up by one I simply added 256 to fd02, which gave me fe02, wrote this down on a scrap of paper together with the contents of /proc/cmdline, and rebooted. At the Lilo prompt I manually entered the kernel command line copied from /proc/cmdline, adjusting the value of 'root' to 'fe02', and bootup went perfectly from there on. After logging in to my new system I ran lilo, which fixed the problem permanently. My question is this: Why is the installer using Lilo (which I thought had gone out with the dinosaurs)? Using Grub, specifying the root device in symbolic form (i.e. /dev/mapper/lenny-root_crypt) on the kernel command line in grub/menu.lst and making some small changes to the initrd /init script would simplify things enormously and make for a trouble-free reboot after installing. Another question: Isn't it time to make USB-stick install the default method and providing ready-made USB-stick images to the users? It's _so_ much more convenient than fussing with CDs (which are in addition inherently unreliable -- and not every computer has a CD drive). What follows is the script I used to make the install USB stick: (Thank you to http://d-i.pascal.at/) --------------------------------- CODE ----------------------------------------- #!/bin/sh mkdosfs /dev/sdd1 syslinux /dev/sdd1 mkdir -p /mnt/tmp mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt/tmp cd /mnt/tmp curl -O http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-amd64/current/images/hd-media/vmlinuz curl -O http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-amd64/current/images/hd-media/initrd.gz echo -e "default vmlinuz\nappend initrd=initrd.gz ramdisk_size=10240 root=/dev/rd/0 devfs=mount,dall rw DEBCONF_PRIORITY=medium" > syslinux.cfg curl -L -o netinst.iso http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/lenny_di_rc1/amd64/iso-cd/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso ls -l cd umount /mnt/tmp install-mbr /dev/sdd ------------------------------- END CODE --------------------------------------- -- System Information: Debian Release: 5.0 APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Kernel: Linux 2.6.28 (SMP w/2 CPU cores; PREEMPT) Locale: LANG=ru_RU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=ru_RU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org