Bug#251898:
Quoting martin f krafft [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I cannot imagine how partman would hang due to the resync of RAIDs. Can you please try to reproduce this problem? Hm, not sure: I vaguely remember, that the hardware in question was a then current Dell server with two hard-disks. If nobody faced the problem again, I suggest to close the bug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
memtest before install?
Hi, is it (or will it be) possible to check the RAM for errors before actually doing an installation with d-i? Either as optional step in the d-i menu or as additional boot target for the syslinux boot prompt? Thanks for comments. Cheers, WB (please CC me) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
d-i over ISDN line?
Hi, just a curious question: Can I use d-i (e.g. the netinst CD) with PPP over ISDN? Not that I really want to go through the pain of a 64 (or 56) kbit/s line, I just like to know :-) TIA! Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#279307: debian-installer: shortcut for language/country/keymap is useful
Package: debian-installer Severity: wishlist Tags: d-i As only eight kernel parameters seem to be allowed, it is a waste to use three parameters for: languagechooser/language-name=English countrychooser/shortlist=US console-keymaps-at/keymap=us It would be useful to have (for preseeding) one parameter: preseed/l10n=English;US;us Or whatever is possible... -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#279309: debian-installer: preseeding Erase entire disk cumbersome
Package: debian-installer Severity: normal Tags: d-i Preseeding the parameter d-i partman-auto/init_automatically_partition select to e.g. Erase entire disk: IDE1 master (hda) - 1.1 GB QEMU HARDDISK doesn't work (of course) for other disks. It would be useful to have a way to let debconf or partman or what work without the substring - Otherwise it's nearly impossible to use this option for different machines. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#279307: debian-installer: shortcut for language/country/keymap is useful
Quoting Christian Perrier [EMAIL PROTECTED]: This will be implemented in localechooser which will replace languagechooser and countrychooser in further d-i development (see /people/bubulle/localechooser in d-i SVN). Language and country will be preseedable as preseed/locale: .. Do I understand this correctly: Will I be able to set this stuff in the preseed file in the future? That would be great. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Emacs mode for preseed files
Nothing serious, I just like colourful editing. I sent the file also as a wishlist bug (#279061) for the debian-el package. Cheers, -- W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://people.debian.org/~debacle/ ;;; preseed.el --- a major mode for editing d-i preseed files ;; 2004-10-31, W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED] ;; Use this file under the terms of the GNU General Public License (require 'font-lock) (defvar preseed-mode-abbrev-table nil Abbreviation table used in d-i preseed buffers.) (define-abbrev-table 'preseed-mode-abbrev-table ()) (setq preseed-font-lock-keywords (eval-when-compile (list (list \\(^\\s-+#.*\\) '(1 font-lock-comment-face)) (list ^\\(\\S-+\\)\\s-+\\(\\S-+\\)\\s-+\\(\\S-+\\) '(1 font-lock-keyword-face) '(2 font-lock-function-name-face) '(3 font-lock-type-face) (defun preseed-mode () Major mode for editing d-i preseed files colourfully. (interactive) (kill-all-local-variables) (setq comment-start # comment-multi-line nil comment-start-skip #+[\t ]*) (setq major-mode 'preseed-mode mode-name Preseed local-abbrev-table preseed-mode-abbrev-table) (run-hooks 'preseed-mode-hook) (set (make-local-variable 'font-lock-defaults) '(preseed-font-lock-keywords nil nil ((?_ . w) (provide 'preseed)
Re: Emacs mode for preseed files
On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 12:53:33PM +, W. Borgert wrote: (setq preseed-font-lock-keywords (eval-when-compile (list (list \\(^\\s-+#.*\\) '(1 font-lock-comment-face)) ^ this should be a '*', not a '+', sorry Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Questions about partman-auto recipes
Hi, I like to feed the d-i with a storage server recipe, e.g.: / ~10 GB XFS /var all remaining XFS swap thrice the RAM swap Questions: 1. There was some discussion about a storage server recipe on the list. Any chance, there will be one in d-i? 2. As I have two disks, all three partitions should be on mdX using RAID1. Is this possible with parman-auto? 3. How do I specify, that an existing partition (other OS!) should be left alone? Many thanks in advance! Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Problem with SCSI on HP 712/60
Hi, a colleague tried to install Debian on his HP712/60 with standard SCSI adaptor (whatever that is). He used the d-i testing image of 2004-08-20. The d-i went smoothly until the creation of file systems. The kernel output on the fourth console said: SCSI device sda: 8467200 512-bytes hdwr sectorrs (4335 MB) p6 adding swap: 191044k swap-space (priority -1) scsi0 (3:0) target is suffering from tag starvation. scsi0 (3:0) broken device is looping in contingent allegiance: ignoring After that, the system is stone dead. As he tried also with two more 712/60s and also tried other d-i versions, I believe, there must be a fundamental problem. Any ideas? Many thanks in advance! Cheers, WB Note: I can do further tests, but probably not before mid-October. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Multiple problems with d-i on Dell Latitude (i386)
Hi, I used the netinst (105 MB image) of 2004-07-01. Some problems occured: 1. Method 'linux26': Hangs during PC card phase. Had to switch off. 2. Method 'linux26 hw-detect/pcmcia=off (or so)': Did not detect the ethernet device (Broadcom 570x Gigabit). No idea which driver to use from the list, so rebooted. 3. Method 'linux': No PC card probs :-) No network driver probs :-) Installed grub on /dev/hda3 (because XP uses /dev/hda1,2) and I do not want grub as primary boot manager on that machine. Killed the MBR! No boot from HD at all possible. 4. Same as 3, but installed grub in the MBR, which works, but was not the original intention. 5. Upgrade to kernel 2.6: Again, the ethernet is dead, so I'm stuck with 2.4. 6. A colleague was unhappy about the 'ar' support, because it goes left-to-right and the letters are detached from each other, which seems to be unnormal for 'ar'. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Multiple problems with d-i on Dell Latitude (i386)
Quoting W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I used the netinst (105 MB image) of 2004-07-01. Some problems occured: Many thanks for the replies. I hope, I can try the same hardware again, when 2.6.7 is used by the d-i. It's not mine, unfortunately. I will report about any success or failure. One remark: The link was http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimage-testing/daily/i386/current/ It would be very, very, very useful, if the initial boot screen would show the REAL version (e.g. sid 2004-07-01 or sarge 2004-07-02) instead of build on 2004-05-28 or so which is plainly wrong. Most d-i users/testers could give much better indication of what d-i version they use, with a useful version string in the boot screen! Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Multiple problems with d-i on Dell Latitude (i386)
Quoting Gaudenz Steinlin [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The build on 2004-05-28 is not wrong. It's the date the initrd on this image was built. Despite that it would be nice to have the iso build date there too. Yes, if I report a problem with d-i, I do not get the question Which initrd exactly do you have?, but Which ISO did you use? Would it be difficult to add the variant (sid/sarge/home-grown/...) and ISO build date at a prominent place of the boot menus? Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How much mem is low, exactly?
On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 03:10:43AM +0200, sylvain ferriol wrote: this is the patch attached I applied the patch and can build anna*.udeb without problems. Where can I find information on how to create installation floppies using this .udeb? Better: If such floppies exist somewhere, I would like to download... Thanks in advance! Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How much mem is low, exactly?
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 01:40:20PM +0200, sferriol wrote: cd .trunk/installer/build/localudebs ... dd if=net-drivers.img of=/dev/fd0 That was easy! This patch is good - I can now partition on my 24 MB machine. It seems that the memory limit is now about 21.5 MB (for i486, stone age hardware). Thanks a lot! Issues: - In lowmem mode, the installer now asks some questions more than one time. This is acceptable of course. - The partitioner did not give me the choice 'all in one - recommended for new users', but only 'separate home dirs'. Maybe I did sth. wrong? - There is room for improvement: Some tools were installed without my consent/need: os-prober, lilo-installer, nobootloader - I can't remember all, sorry. Also I'm not sure, whether the countrychooser could be optional for lowmem. IMHO, the goal for lowmem on ia32 should be around 16 MB, depending on the hardware. Questions: - Is there any chance, that Sylvains patch (that works perfectly for me) will be accepted soon? - Is it possible (and worth), to leave out the countrychooser? - Is it possible to not load os-prober, lilo-installer etc. in lowmem mode? Thanks in advance! Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
grub doesn't boot after lowmem install
The install on my 24 MB machine (486, 100 MHz) went fine using the anna patch by Sylvain Ferriol. Unfortunately, when booting after 1st stage install, I get: GRUB Loading stage1.5. GRUB loading, please wait... (note the different case of 'loading') I waited several(!) minutes, but nothing happened. I will try LILO now, but the install takes several hours, so don't expect a report soon. Is there a know problem with GRUB on low end machines? If so, lowmem install on i386 should default to LILO... Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RAID1 on / planned?
I did a RAID1 install with the netinst CD of yesterday and failed (detailled problem report later, I will try again first). Questions: - Is RAID1 on / planned to be supported? IMHO, it doesn't make much sense to have RAID1 support, but not on /. OK, you may save the / or /boot from time to time manually on the second disk, but that's not convenient... - Have other people tested RAID1 lately? It would be nice to read a success story from time to time :-) - I prepared the first disk (all partitions of type raid) in the installer, then the second. Unfortunately, the partitioner forgot the types of the first disk, as soon as I prepared the second one. I had to set the 'raid' type of the first disk again. Bug in the partioner, bad usage, or jealousy between the two disks? Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How much mem is low, exactly?
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 01:24:40PM +, W. Borgert wrote: - There is room for improvement: Some tools were installed without my consent/need: os-prober, lilo-installer, nobootloader - I can't remember all, sorry. Also I'm Now I tried again: reiserfs and xfs are downloaded as well, but I did not select those! Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Resuming after failed install?
(How) can I resume a failed install? Before, the installation went fine completely, just GRUB didn't want to boot, so I want to try LILO. I inserted the installation floppies again, in the hope that I can soon step to the LILO installation, but the thing presents me the partioner again. Because the installation takes several hours on that machine, I need to resume. TIA! Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: grub doesn't boot after lowmem install
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 12:38:30PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote: ... grub hangs ... I've seen grub do this if the root partition extends too far from the front of the drive, and the /boot part happens to land back there. This happens to me on a modern p4 with a 30 gb drive. My drive has ~0.5 GB... -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: grub doesn't boot after lowmem install
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 02:05:34PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote: Right, but it still seems to be a bios issue, it's unable to access all of the drive. They never really fix this, just push the problem back What is the solution? Use LILO? I had LILO on that machine before, so it still should work. Only problem: I don't like to go through the installation process again, as it takes hours. Can I just install LILO over GRUB without finding myself in the partioner? Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: grub doesn't boot after lowmem install
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 06:53:35PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote: W. Borgert wrote: What is the solution? Use LILO? A small /boot partition and grub works for me. Hm, the harddisk is already very small, so I don't want to waste space with multiple partitions. Also, my other problem remains: I don't like to go through the installation process again, as it takes hours. Can I just install LILO over GRUB without finding myself in the partioner? Btw. a colleague of mine had the same problem. After some problems during the end of installation (I can't remember whether it was kernel or boot loader) he wanted to repeat that step, but always found himself in the partitioner again and again. He - as me - didn't find a way to tell d-i: Hey, I did partitioning base install, don't do it again! Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Including additional packages on the Debian base CD
Moreover it would be nice to have a tool which builds a minimum Debian mirror with just the packages needed by debootstrap and the most important udebs. I think that this way we could use debian-cd with a bottom-up approach, without downloading a whole debian mirror. I have a receipt for building a partial mirror on my web page. Some people use the scripts successfully for FAI and other purposes. See http://people.debian.org/~debacle/ [look for partial mirror] Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How much mem is low, exactly?
i have changed anna to enable the user to select what he wants. and anna only download the selected packages (and dependencies too) Could you provide floppy images (boot.img/root.img/net-drivers.img) on some http-accessable place, please? I would like to test it. - there is not enough time to include this patch for release rc1, so according with joey, i will create specific images for very lowmem PCs It would be nice to have the patch in (if it works) - that would lead to better testing than lowmem-specific images, I believe. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
How much mem is low, exactly?
What is the target memory for the lowmem installation? 24 MB seems not to work. I had the hope, that ca. 16 MB would be the limit. Some ideas for improvements: 1. Disable certain downloads/features. IMHO it is OK to have a lowmem install with less features, e.g. LVM, RAID, other FSs than EXT3/EXT2, etc. Who would use a 16 MB machine with SW-RAID? :-) 2. Let the user select downloads/features. If the user does have SCSI, SATA, etc. why download the stuff and eat RAM disk space? 3. Let the user earlier create the partition table and the swap space (and acitvate the latter) and download other udebs later. 4. Use text instead of ncurses for debconf (lowmem is English-only anyway). What do the d-i people think? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
partman restart (was: Installation on external USB...)
On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 02:26:01PM +0300, Anton Zinoviev wrote: Partman remembers that the partition has already been formatted and doesn't format it for second time. Instead of rebooting one could change for example the file system from ext3 to reiserfs and then back to ext3. Alternatively one could also change temporary the method (from format to don't use and then back to format). IIRC, if I do that, I have also to set the mount point as maybe mount options again, right? This is indeed not intuitive. Probably at every start partman has to forget which partitions have been formated. Please :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RAID1 install fails
On Sun, May 30, 2004 at 08:50:31PM -0300, Martin Michlmayr wrote: add a line waypoint 5 install_extra so this looks like: waypoint 3 apt_update waypoint 5 install_extra waypoint 1 pick_kernel waypoint 10 install_kernel This should work. Yes, I get one step forward (Muehsam ernaehrt sich das Eichhoernchen) - now the installation of grub/lilo fails. GRUB message on vt3: /dev/md0 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive. LILO: An installation step failed. (...) failing step is: Install the LILO boot loader on a hard disk. Both / on XFS and / on EXT3 give this error. Note 1: The progress bar Starting up the partitioner hangs at 55% (Please wait...) while the RAIDs are synchronising. Because this can take several (e.g. 30) minutes, it would be nice to communicate that fact to the user. Note 2: With linux26 I get two errors: First the os-prober hangs (progress bar at 10%, I just killed the bastard), after grub install fails fatally, I get an endless loop Trying to enable the frame buffer... with a fancy flashing screen. Uhu, the 70s are back! I'm going to try this again with 2.4. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
current floppy install for i386?
Are there floppy images (boot.img, root.img, and net-drivers.img) for i386, that are newer than 2004-04-29? Maybe daily builds? I like to test them, but don't want to hunt yesterdays fixed bugs. Thanks, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RAID1 install fails
With the sarge-i386-netinst.iso of 2004-05-28, a RAID1 install fails for me. I said the installer to use both disks (hda 8.4 and hdb 8.6 GB in size, maybe that is the problem?). I let the installer automatically partition the RAID device (all in one partition) and get the error message: [!!] Partition disks Failed to create a file system The ext3 file system creation in partition #1 of RAID1 device #0 failed. The messages on vt3 are: /sbin/tune2fs: Not a directory while while trying to open /dev/md/0/part1 Couldn't find valid file system superblock. mke2fs 1.35 (28-Feb-2004) Could not stat /dev/md/0/part1 --- Not a directory This is reproducable with both 2.4 and 2.6 and with both EXT3 and XFS (the latter is what I really want...). Note 1: I did not try LVM, nor expert mode. Note 2: Non-RAID1 installation on either disk works perfectly. -- this .signature intentionally left blank. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: current floppy install for i386?
On Sun, May 30, 2004 at 01:08:54PM +0200, Frans Pop wrote: The images are also included on the daily netinst CD iso's. Ah yes, under ./install/floppies/, cool, thanks! Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
lowmem floppy install fails
I use boot.img, root.img, net-drivers.img from the sarge-i386-netinst.iso of 2004-05-29. HW: mid-1990s laptop (486DX4+SL 100MHz, 24MB RAM, 520MB HD) with floppy disk, PCMCIA-net, VGA colour graphics, sound, serial and parallel port, but no USB/CD-ROM/firewire. Whether in simple or in expert mode, a lot of udebs are downloaded, which I would like to prevent: firewire, jfs, lvm, md, reiserfs, ntfs, xfs, scsi, sata... Worse, the download of one or another useless (for me!) component fails: [!!] Download installer components Failed to load installer component Loading reiserfsprogs-udeb failed for unknown reasons. Aborting. (most times it is some scsi udeb, that fails) Instead of trying to continue with the other udebs, after failing the installation does stop somehow. If I finally get all modules somehow, things are still not OK: a simple 'ps ax' on vt2 gives me: PID Uid VmSize Stat Command Killed Not enough memory? Of course, at this point I could have setup swap, because I already have a swap partition, but the installer itself did not give me the possibility. Final remark: It seems to me, that the lowmem install has room for improvement. lowmem install is a very important thing to have for users in the developing world, for embedded systems, and for nostalgic geeks. If d-i is just not the right tool for lowmem installation, it would be nice to have miniconda (mini-Anaconda) support Debian. According to http://www.rule-project.org/en/sw/miniconda.php, Miniconda will install in as little as 12 MB of RAM. Michael Fratoni managed to force an install in 8 MB, but the results are not consistant... -- this .signature intentionally left blank. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: installer screenshots
I asked the same question here: http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2004/04/msg01355.html The outcome was that I had to use an emulator, such as bochs or qemu. Because of real-world-work, I didn't try. If it's possible to run the emulator in an xterm, you might be able to copy the screen contents textual for use with an LaTeX verbatim environment. Btw.: What kind of book are you working on? Do you think, DocBook/XML and transformation to LaTeX via db2latex-xsl would be a suitable way to produce the book? The DAHB (German Debian Anwender Handbuch) is made that way. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[OT] LaTeX, XML (Re: installer screenshots)
unless I can incorporate db2latex-xsl-generated code into existing TeTeX code, it's a no go. With db2latex-xsl, you have your own driver XSL stylesheet, that sets all variables etc. E.g. to use the stylesheet of your publisher. Why, can DocBook do the screenshots? :-) Not better than LaTeX - you may use EPS or PDF graphics depending on the desired output format. DocBook/XML gives you better ways to create HTML (e.g. better than LaTeX2HTML, IMHO) and other formats. If you have more questions, let's do talk in private, gerne auch in deutsch, as it's not relevant to debian-boot. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RAID1 install fails
Unfortunately, I cannot yet change the subject line :-( On Sun, May 30, 2004 at 11:58:53AM -0300, Martin Michlmayr wrote: When you create a RAID device, you'll see something like this: RAID1 #1 - 8 GB #1 primary8 GB Yes, I got that: RAID1 device #0 - 0.1 GB Software RAID device #1 8.4 GB The problem was: I thought I can create multiple partitions on top of one RAID1 device - instead I have to create multiple - more or less identically sized - partitions in my two disks and than have to create multiple RAID1 devices. So I just did my partitioning on top of that device :-( If I understand this now, I can autopartition my two hard-disks, but now I have to arrange the six RAID capable partitions manually. Not nice, but OK, if you don't have to do this too often. What you did was to choose the first line, then you got a warning and continued. This does not work with RAID or LVM - you _have_ to choose I don't think, that I got a warning that would help me to understand the problem at this point. Ideally, partman should only show one line for RAID and LVM, but this requires many changes. Maybe it's possible to print an error instead of a warning when you choose the first line; or better yet, partman should use the 2nd line even when you choose the 1st line. I'll check later how hard this would be to do. That sounds good. Other note: I never was able to really get back after that wrong RAID creation step, I had to reboot always. Now, with the multiple RAID1 devices, I could install the base system partly, but dpkg couldn't install kernel 2.4 nor 2.6: /usr/sbin/mkinitrd: RAID support requires raidtools2 Failed to create initrd image. Is the netinst CD missing a udeb? Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RAID1 install fails
On Sun, May 30, 2004 at 06:35:41PM -0300, Martin Michlmayr wrote: * W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-05-30 18:40]: /usr/sbin/mkinitrd: RAID support requires raidtools2 Failed to create initrd image. root on RAID is currently not supported, due to the bug you just saw. With newer d-i images, you should get a warning of root is RAID or LVM. Does somebody have the bug number or at least the name of the package the bug is filed against? Because I'm keen to do a complete RAID1 install, I would like to test again as soon as the bug is closed. TIA! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Installation on external USB harddisk? [and other issues]
Quoting Martin Michlmayr [EMAIL PROTECTED]: * W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-05-27 19:33]: Well, the installer runs from the CD, while the installed kernel runs from the USB hard-disk and has to work with the initrd... I don't know, but maybe there's the problem. So what does the kernel print before it dies? IIRC, it was sth. like (at least similar): pivot_root: file not found. kernel panic: attempted to kill init! This is what has been reported and worked around today for a similar case: http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2004/05/msg03728.html It would be nice, if the simple, dirty fix would not be necessary in future versions :-) Nevertheless, I'll ask my colleague to try it out ASAP. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Installation on external USB harddisk? [and other issues]
Quoting W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Quoting Martin Michlmayr [EMAIL PROTECTED]: * W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-05-27 19:33]: Well, the installer runs from the CD, while the installed kernel runs from the USB hard-disk and has to work with the initrd... I don't know, but maybe there's the problem. So what does the kernel print before it dies? pivot_root: No such file or directory /sbin/init: 418: cannot open /dev/console: No such file Kernel panic: Attempted to kill init! The workaround described in http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2004/05/msg03728.html did not work :-( Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Installation on external USB harddisk? [and other issues]
On Thu, May 27, 2004 at 04:19:59PM -0300, Martin Michlmayr wrote: * W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-05-26 17:58]: - installation with either beta4 or current of 2004-05-24 works, GRUB and/or LILO can be installed on the MBR of /dev/sda, as my collegue did not want to overwrite his /dev/hda-MBR - kernel 2.4 and 2.6 start booting, but are panicking during boot (I can ask, at which point exactly, if this helps) So the debian-installer kernel boots but then the system doesn't boot? Well, the installer runs from the CD, while the installed kernel runs from the USB hard-disk and has to work with the initrd... I don't know, but maybe there's the problem. That's strange since both use the Debian kernel from the archive. Did you pass special parameters to d-i? (like noapic or so). No special parameters have been used. I can ask my colleague to try out some parameters. 1. If the installation failed at some point, one cannot do the install base system step again - it fails. Instead one has not only to redo the partition step again, but one has to remove(!) the partition and recreate them. Otherwise cruft Hmm, when you mark the partition as format and enter the partitioner again, is it not formated? Yes, exactly. At least, it seems so. 2. It would be nice, if the installer gives a friendly warning, if one forgets to create a swap partition :-) Maybe, although I'm not sure. Many modern machines have enough RAM that they don't really need swap. Maybe partman could warn if the machine has less than a gig of ram or so. That would be helpful esp. for new users. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: ViewCVS (http://svn.debian.org/viewcvs/d-i/) broken
On Wed, May 26, 2004 at 07:37:07PM +0200, Frans Pop wrote: ViewCVS uses anonymous SVN access and that has been disabled because of locking problems a couple of weeks ago. It would be nice, if somebody with write access on the host could create a four line HTML page with this information instead of the Python exception backtrace :-) Thanks for the information anyway. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Installation on external USB harddisk? [and other issues]
A colleague tried this and failed, so I better ask first. Environment: - some relatively new Dell Latitude D800 notebook (i386) - Windows XP occupies 100% of the internal disk (/dev/hda) (and is recognised by the current installer) - external USB 160GB Maxtor harddisk (/dev/sda) 100% for Debian - installation medium: netinst CD (~115 MB) - installation with either beta4 or current of 2004-05-24 works, GRUB and/or LILO can be installed on the MBR of /dev/sda, as my collegue did not want to overwrite his /dev/hda-MBR - kernel 2.4 and 2.6 start booting, but are panicking during boot (I can ask, at which point exactly, if this helps) No formal installation report, as no second stage installation was possible. Other issues, my colleague complainded about: 1. If the installation failed at some point, one cannot do the install base system step again - it fails. Instead one has not only to redo the partition step again, but one has to remove(!) the partition and recreate them. Otherwise cruft on the partition stops the base system installation. 2. It would be nice, if the installer gives a friendly warning, if one forgets to create a swap partition :-) 3. There are still display problems with kernel 2.6 (not only in beta4!) when switching consoles sometimes. 4. New users do not know what Debconf priority means. This is Debian newspeak :-) Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ViewCVS (http://svn.debian.org/viewcvs/d-i/) broken
An Exception Has Occurred
Python Traceback
Traceback (most recent call last):
File /org/svn.debian.org/viewcvs/lib/viewcvs.py, line 2585, in main
request.run_viewcvs()
File /org/svn.debian.org/viewcvs/lib/viewcvs.py, line 263, in run_viewcvs
self.rootpath, rev)
File /org/svn.debian.org/viewcvs/lib/vclib/svn/__init__.py, line 279, in
__init__
self.repos = repos.svn_repos_open(rootpath, self.pool)
SubversionException: ('Berkeley DB error while opening environment for
filesystem /org/svn.debian.org/svn/d-i/db:\nPermission denied', 160029)
What's wrong?
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Howto make screenshots of d-i?
Hi, what is the best way to create screenshots of d-i dialogs? Installing via serial cable? Using d-i demo, if it still exists? I'm going to create an installation manual, but not w/o illustration :-) TIA! Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Howto make screenshots of d-i?
Quoting Tapio Lehtonen [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Tue, Apr 13, 2004 at 12:08:44PM +0200, W. Borgert wrote: what is the best way to create screenshots of d-i dialogs? I used a camera. It is more work, because I edited the image files to Oh no :-) Thanks very much for your hint, but that's not the way I'm going to take the pictures. Even with a TFT screen, the pictures will not look as good as digital screenshots. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
SW-RAID support (was: Who do you have to sleep with...)
Well, some people at Debian are very much interested in SW-RAID. If only to use it on their Atari ST. Paul, it would be absolutely great, if your current work would go into d-i SVN. Even if you think, that it's not perfect yet. Your ISO didn't work for me, but if you put it in SVN, other people can try to enhance it. If you don't have much time at the moment, maybe you could send your code to one of the d-i guys for check-in? Joey? Christian? Mark, if you can test d-i SW-RAID support, this is great. Testing (incl. giving qualified test reports) is the single most important task for d-i, IMHO. Cheers, -- W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://people.debian.org/~debacle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: goals for next release
- SW-RAID support would be very great, this is sth. the other distros have for long. What prevents Paul's mdadm stuff from going into d-i? - Support for 2.6 is important, too. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Raid Install
Hi, unfortunately, I don't know whether sarge will support RAID1 (I believe that is what you meant when saying RAID) out of the box. I really hope so, because otherwise it would be a disadvantage of Debian compared to RH/MDK/SuSE. The good news is, that some people, notably Paul Fleischer, are working on that. See these mails: http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2004/debian-boot-200403/msg00236.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2004/debian-boot-200403/msg00652.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2004/debian-boot-200403/msg00890.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2004/debian-boot-200403/msg00900.html AFAIK, it does not work 100% at the moment, but if people help, maybe it will be in the next beta? Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: netinst.iso 2004-03-08: problem with /etc/apt/sources.list
On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 11:58:31AM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: W. Borgert wrote: when asked for the right Debian mirror I chose a local mirror setup by myself. That worked perfectly. Unfortunately, the security site of Debian seems to be included always. I do not want to have the security site in the sources.list, because the machine does not have internet access - just local network. Did I miss to answer 'no' at some point or is it a d-i bug? base-config asks about security.debian.org only at medium priority (the installer runs at high by default). However, this should be ok, because it tries to add the security sources, and if it fails, leaves them commented out. You'll see a warning screen about the security updates not being available, which I judge is better than bothering everyone else with a question that 99% will answer yes to. I agree. However, it is a little bit ugly to see the poor apt trying to get the Packages file and having to press ^C to stop this. Note: New users don't even know that ^C will help there. I have no idea how to solve this glitch other than documenting it in the sarge installation manual. Cheers, -- W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://people.debian.org/~debacle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: netinst.iso 2004-03-08: problem with GRUB/LILO
On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 12:36:05PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: You went back from the final screen before rebooting. Problem is that at that screen it has already unmounted /target. Oops, I should have seen that. After all, I had the console open. I just didn't type mount :-( The best thing to do currently is to go back from previous screen that asks for the device to install grub to. Or use expert mode. I will use expert mode the next time. I think it would be better if prebaseconfig waited to unmount the filesystems until after the final question. This would avoid this type of confusion. It must be done with care though. That would be much better. Cheers, -- W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://people.debian.org/~debacle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: netinst.iso 2004-03-08: problem with /etc/apt/sources.list
On Sat, Mar 13, 2004 at 10:19:30AM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: Hmm, I've never seen apt try for more than a quarter second before it fails to connect. Maybe your network is different though. Well, the network is behind a firewall, that does allow http and ftp and nothing else. Because I didn't enter our proxy, I'm not sure, what happened, DNS will fail surely. After ten or twenty seconds I got bored and pressed ^C. Maybe one could add a helpful text for newbies at this place: Trying to update the package database. If anything fails, please press ^C (control key and c key at the same time). [apt-get update, etc.] Cheers, -- W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://people.debian.org/~debacle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
netinst.iso 2004-03-08: problem with XFS
Hi, I just tried to install a machine with two SCSI disks, but only the first disk should be used. Using XFS for all partitions but swap on the first disk lead to an error message could not mount partition of type swap or so. d-i always went back to the partitioning menu. I changed all XFS partitions to ext3 and everything went fine. Is there a known problem with XFS in d-i? Or is it a problem to have a second SCSI disk, while not using it? (I have unused ext3 and swap partitions on the second disk.) Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RAID1 netinst CD
Quoting Finn-Arne Johansen [EMAIL PROTECTED]: (mkinitrd problems when installing kernel with d-i + md) I guess it has to do something with the way the root partition is detected. after the system is installed, mkinitrd has no problem detecting that the root partition is on a md-device Maybe it doesn't work, because the mount point is /target/? First of all, to test this I would, as others have pointed out, start with setting up raid manually. If you need help, take a look at a mini-how that i wrote for skolelinux-servers. It's located at http://developer.skolelinux.no/dokumentasjon/skolelinux_softwareraid_howto.txt With the help of the company admin, I was able to create a SW-RAID manually. I have to enable other people to setup similar boxes, who are not command line heroes. That's why my hope is on d-i. Which is bad. Both RH and SuSE installers can to RAID installs. So my company admin says. Hopefully we'll get it with the final version of d-i. People who cant set up SWRaid without an automagic installer, should not run SWRaid. Because they will not add the extra bits that are needed, like monitoring setup and so one, and therefor SWRaid would only provide false security. I have to disagree here. In a (more or less) big company, you will always find some people who create a policy (install with RAID) and other people, who just have to follow this policy, even if they do not know about the details. For them, it must still be easy to set up the machine. As long as there are at least some experts, this is OK, I think. Even the experts will prefer an easy to use installer, instead of many(!) manual steps you have to do, when creating root-on-md without the help of d-i. But yes, it will be nice to have the possibility to set up SWRaid out of the box. Yes :-) Cheers and many thanks for your hints and the howto document! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RAID1 netinst CD
Quoting Erich Waelde [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 10:47:37PM +, W. Borgert wrote: 1. I'm a RAID/MD newbie: Is there a howto or manual about what every single step I have to take to realise RAID1 using the installer? If you are new to md/raid, then I would recommend to play with it on an up and running system first. Create 2 partitions same size on different disks, a few 100 MB are perfectly sufficient. Then install mdadm and read the docs. Search on debian-user, maybe. briefly: - mark the partitions as 'fd' Linux raid autodetection That was clear to me already, because of the error message (two steps later in d-i). I just went back into fdisk and changed it. - create a raid device /dev/md0 with mdadm --create (or /dev/md/0 if you have mounted devfs) Do I need to edit /etc/raidtab.conf or any other file? If so, does d-i help there? - create a filesystem on that device like mkfs.xfs /dev/md0 OK, - mount the new fs monitor progress with cat /proc/mdstat That should get you going. Once you grok that, its much simpler to deal with it, while on limited resources. Yes, thanks for the hint. Anyway, if the md/raid stuff becomes part of d-i, there should be a step-by-step intro in the d-i manual, esp. for people who are new to mdadm and friends. 2. I'm missing XFS in the file system list. Is it really not there or do I have to enable this somehow? well, it's not yet in the menu, but it seems that the sw parts are available. So try to do it on the shell --- give the configurator something to do, however, otherwise it will believe that it has not successfully created and mounted file systems. I will try that, thanks. 3. It seems that the installer uses Linux 2.4. Any chance to use and install 2.6? not yet integrated. But not a problem to boot the 2.4.24 kernel and then upgrade after base system has been installed properly. No, not really a problem, but it would be nice to use 2.6 in d-i, if one is going for 2.6 anyway. If there are problems with 2.6 they show up immediately, which might be better or not. Thanks for your help! One remaining question: Does anybody know whether the md/raid stuff is/will be included into official d-i? Plans? Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RAID1 netinst CD
Hello, today I sat down together with an experienced Linux/UNIX admin and we went through the complete installation with RAID1. Unfortunately, we didn't succeed. We have two identical HDs and created four partitions on each in an identical layout. We sat all(!) partitions to type 'FD'. We created the MDs and created three ext3 and one swap (all on top of MD). We would like to have XFS, but it was not in the menu, but that't not a big issue. Problems: 1. We were not able to create all MDs from the menu. At the beginning, the first partition of the first SCSI disk did not appear in the d-i menu. We created all with mdadm. 2. Deleting MDs from d-i didn't work. The MDs always showed up again and again! 3. The installation of the kernel failed completely with sth. like /usr/sbin/mkinitrd: Cannot determine root device. We tried to disable the first MD (not possible from the menu, but mdadm worked), and did / with ext3 and without RAID1, but error (3.) still appeared. What's wrong with my setup? Thanks in advance for any help! Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: debian-installer help wanted
On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 01:43:29PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: 3. PCMCIA 4. low memory support I can at least test d-i on low mem + PCMCIA network machine w/o CD-ROM. 9. everything else What's about RAID1 support? I remember someone is working on that. Would this clash with GRUB? Again, I'm willing to test this. Cheers, -- W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
using d-i from within running system?
Hello, this is a d-i beginners question: Is it possible to use d-i from a running system? I.e. boot Knoppix and use d-i from there to install Debian? Thanks in advance! Cheers, -- W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: debian-installer beta 2 released
Quoting Joey Hess [EMAIL PROTECTED] on [EMAIL PROTECTED]: - Support for systems with only 32 mb of memory (i386 only). Will I be able to use d-i on my notebook? It's a 486/100 with 24 MB RAM and 340 MB disk. No CD-ROM, but floppy drive and a PCMCIA ethernet card. Screen about 30 cm. Woody ran fine. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: debian-installer beta 2 released
Quoting Joey Hess [EMAIL PROTECTED]: W. Borgert wrote: Will I be able to use d-i on my notebook? It's a 486/100 with 24 MB RAM and 340 MB disk. No CD-ROM, but floppy drive and a PCMCIA ethernet card. Screen about 30 cm. Woody ran fine. Not unless you feel comfortable with setting up a swap partition manually as soon as the installer boots, in a shell. We currently lack a utility to do this automatic early enough to support less than 32 mb of ram. I'm relieved, that swap is the only problem. I tried FAI on the machine and failed, because FAI doesn't support PCMCIA network. With the woody installer the only problem was the huge number of floppies I needed. Would it be difficult to create a d-i module for that task? Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: debian-installer beta 2 released
On Thu, Jan 15, 2004 at 03:17:16PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: The catch is that it needs to have somewhere to swap onto, and this has to happen before partitioning, so you have to have a spare partition or drive to use. Well, of course the notebook computer has only one drive. What now? Other question: Do I really need more than 24 MB for partitioning? Cheers, -- W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Some minor d-i problems
Hello, a colleague of mine installed Sarge (netinst ISO image of 2004-01-11). He's a Windows guy and a very good professional GUI design engineer. He used Linux before (SuSE). Here are his comments: 1. In the submenu Configure apt you can choose different methods, such as ftp, http, file system. There are two buttons OK and Cancel. Pressing OK seems to lead to testing the source (right?), but the dialog stays. If you are finished with selecting sources, you have to press Cancel. This is very confusing. My colleague suggests to rename OK to Check source or Test connection and to rename Cancel to Complete or Finish There could be an additional Cancel button to get back to the main menu, but in this case that would be identical in behaviour of the Complete button. 2. OpenOffice has been installed, but he is sure, that he did not select this package. This was annoying (BIG package). 3. GNOME has been installed, but a login from GDM was not possible with the GNOME session, only with KDE. (.../gnome-session or so was missing). Normally I would write a formal installation report or file some bugs in the BTS, but because I didn't the installation myself, I just want to inform d-i hackers. Cheers, WB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Some minor d-i problems
On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 02:31:45PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: our UI policies. I suspect your friend may have ran into a known bug that brings a user back to the described screen after they have successfully set up an apt source; cancel is indeed one way to get out of that loop. This bug is fixed in unstable. Good. Thanks for the information. Gnome in testing is seriously broken, this should be resolved soon. I'm looking forward :-) [Btw. I don't care about a graphical installer myself, but don't ask me how many times people asked me about it or even look down at Debian because we don't have it. Aarrgghh.] Cheers, -- W. Borgert [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
