Bug#413931: d-i missing ide modules

2007-03-07 Thread Lou Poppler

Package: installation-reports

Boot method: CD
Image version: debian-31r5-i386-netinst.iso, from usc.edu mirror, md5sum good
Date: 7 Mar 2007, 22:00 UTC

Machine: Old Gateway, Tabor{2,3} motherboard
Processor: P3 (Katmai) 596MHz 
Memory: 384 MB ECC 
Partitions: none


Output of lspci and lspci -n: /bin/sh: lspci: not found
  dmesg says:
: PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
: PCI: Using IRQ router PIIX/ICH [8086/7110] at :00:07.0
: PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device :00:07.0
: PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with :00:10.0

Base System Installation Checklist: 
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it


Initial boot worked:[O] 
Configure network HW:   [O]
Config network: [O] 
Detect CD:  [O] 
Load installer modules: [O] 
Detect hard drives: [O] looks correct in dmesg
Partition hard drives:  [ ] 
Create file systems:[ ]
Mount partitions:   [ ] 
Install base system:[ ] 
Install boot loader:[ ] 
Reboot: [ ]


Comments/Problems:

Missing modules for ide.
Running as expert26 installation.
The last installer screen before starting disk partitioning says this:
: [.] Detect hardware
: Unable to load some modules
: Linux kernel modules needed to drive some of your hardware are not
: available yet.  Simply proceeding with the install may make these
: modules available later.
:
: The unavailable modules, and the devices that need them are: agpgart
: (Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge), ide-scsi
: (Linux IDE-SCSI emulation layer), ide-mod (Linux IDE driver),
: ide-probe-mod (Linux IDE probe driver), ide-detect (Linux IDE
: detection), ide-floppy (Linux IDE floppy)
:
:   Continue

Selecting Continue brings us to the start of partitioning and making
filesystems.

As I searched Google's archives of various debian lists for this problem,
the recurrent answer seems to be that this is an informative message only,
and the modules will be loaded later.  This seems to be contradicted by
this section from the Installation Guide:

: 6.3.2.B Partitioning and Mount Point Selection
: 
:At this time, after hardware detection has been executed a final time,
:debian-installer should be at its full strength, customized for the 
:user's needs and ready to do some real work. As the title of this

:section indicates, the main task of the next few components lies in
:partitioning your disks, creating filesystems, assigning mountpoints
:and optionally configuring closely related issues like LVM or RAID 
:devices.


The text of the error screen, and the text of the Installation Guide,
seem to be saying clearly that these modules are needed to drive the IDE
hardware, and this was the last chance to automatically find them, and it
did not succeed.

I am _very_ reluctant to proceed to partitioning and file-system making,
for this reason:  A week ago I tried installing on this machine, using the
3.1R4 netinst CD and the original 4MB Seagate IDE disk that came with this
machine.  I saw the same errors about missing modules, but proceeded anyway.
The installer pretended to partition the disk, and pretended to install some
stuff for a while, then croaked with an error about the disk being Busy.
After much investigating of the disk with Knoppix and smartctl, it seemed
that the disk was permanently bad, giving errors on self-tests, unable
to successfully write to some parts of it, and hanging busy.  I replaced it
with 2 nice new high-capacity IDE Ultra-ATA disks, and downloaded the newest
netinst 3.1R5 CD, and tried again today.

I don't want to destroy my new disks by trying to partition them when the
installer is plainly telling me it doesn't have the necessary kernel modules
to do the job.  Is there some way I can supply these missing modules to
the installer ?  Should I try to partition/mk*fs them from Knoppix ?
Is there any other documentation I should read ?

Please advise.
Note: I am subscribed to the debian-bugs-dist list.


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Bug#413931: d-i missing ide modules

2007-03-07 Thread Frans Pop
On Wednesday 07 March 2007 23:58, Lou Poppler wrote:
 Comments/Problems:
 : The unavailable modules, and the devices that need them are: agpgart
 : (Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge), ide-scsi
 : (Linux IDE-SCSI emulation layer), ide-mod (Linux IDE driver),
 : ide-probe-mod (Linux IDE probe driver), ide-detect (Linux IDE
 : detection), ide-floppy (Linux IDE floppy)

 The text of the error screen, and the text of the Installation Guide,
 seem to be saying clearly that these modules are needed to drive the
 IDE hardware, and this was the last chance to automatically find them,
 and it did not succeed.

No, the message is just informing you that those modules those modules are 
associated with your hardware, but have not been loaded. To be honest, 
that message is there more for debugging than for signalling any real 
issues.
Unfortunately it tends to be more confusing than helpful to users.

 I am _very_ reluctant to proceed to partitioning and file-system
 making, for this reason:  A week ago I tried installing on this
 machine, using the 3.1R4 netinst CD and the original 4MB Seagate IDE
 disk that came with this machine.  I saw the same errors about missing
 modules, but proceeded anyway. The installer pretended to partition the
 disk, and pretended to install some stuff for a while, then croaked
 with an error about the disk being Busy. After much investigating of
 the disk with Knoppix and smartctl, it seemed that the disk was
 permanently bad, giving errors on self-tests, unable to successfully
 write to some parts of it, and hanging busy.  I replaced it with 2 nice
 new high-capacity IDE Ultra-ATA disks, and downloaded the newest
 netinst 3.1R5 CD, and tried again today.

It is extremely unlikely that your disk problems were in any way caused by 
the installer, and certainly not by the presence of this message. Note 
that the message would not even be shown during a regular (non-expert) 
installation. That would be unthinkable if it contained any real 
information.

If you select manual partitioning in the first dialog of the partitioner 
and the next screen shows your harddisk and the existing partitions that 
are on it, there is nothing to worry about.

 I don't want to destroy my new disks by trying to partition them when
 the installer is plainly telling me it doesn't have the necessary
 kernel modules to do the job.

As I said, it is _not_ saying that. The harddisk problems must have been a 
latent hardware problem that was just exposed by the intensive writing 
that is done during an installation.

Given the age of your system it should be well supported by Sarge. If it 
were a recent system I'd advice to install Etch instead of Sarge, but for 
a Pentium 3 box there is no reason for that.

Hope this gives you the confidence to proceed.

Cheers,
FJP


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Bug#413931: d-i missing ide modules

2007-03-07 Thread Lou Poppler

On Thu, 8 Mar 2007, Frans Pop wrote:


On Wednesday 07 March 2007 23:58, Lou Poppler wrote:

 The text of the error screen, and the text of the Installation Guide,
 seem to be saying clearly that these modules are needed to drive the
 IDE hardware, and this was the last chance to automatically find them,
 and it did not succeed.

No, the message is just informing you that those modules those modules are 
associated with your hardware, but have not been loaded. To be honest, 
that message is there more for debugging than for signalling any real 
issues.

Unfortunately it tends to be more confusing than helpful to users.


Yes, confusing and scary.  Perhaps the words needed and need are
too strong in this message.  I leave this bug open only to allow
d-i maintainers to consider if they want to reword it.

[...] 
It is extremely unlikely that your disk problems were in any way caused by 
the installer, and certainly not by the presence of this message. Note 
that the message would not even be shown during a regular (non-expert) 
installation. That would be unthinkable if it contained any real 
information.


If you select manual partitioning in the first dialog of the partitioner 
and the next screen shows your harddisk and the existing partitions that 
are on it, there is nothing to worry about.

[...]
Given the age of your system it should be well supported by Sarge. If it 
were a recent system I'd advice to install Etch instead of Sarge, but for 
a Pentium 3 box there is no reason for that.


Hope this gives you the confidence to proceed.


Yes, thank you.  The CD part of the install finished fine, the disks are
partitioned and OK, and now it has rebooted from the hard disk and is
happily downloading more packages.

Thanks again.


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