Public bug reported:
Binary package hint: debian-installer
It appears that my fresh install of ubuntu 7.04 laid down a a few faulty
binary files, including
/usr/sbin/mkinitramfs
/usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0.1200.11
In each case the file was present and had the correct size and date, but
had different binary contents than the same file on (what should have
been) an identical system.
I did run the installer media check, and it did not report any problems.
Needless to say, this was very bad, and caused subtle but major issues
as I attempted to use the new system. The corruption of mkinitramfs
appears ultimately to have led to the absence of initrd files, which
made boots fail with the dreaded "kernel panic VFS: Unable to mount root
fs on unknown-block(0,0)." The libglib problem appeared to affect all
applications using the VTE library (though not many other applications).
So I could log in to gdm without error but I could not launch gnome-
terminal (the launch silently failed due to a segfault; it should not
have been silent imo and I did file a separate RFE for that). I also
could not run update-manager.
I have gotten around these problems with the help of apt-get install
--reinstall and the live cd. It is not my intention to file these as a
bug per se. Rather, I suggest an RFE to improve the reliability of the
ubuntu installer, going beyond the optional media check, and actually
verifying the contents of the binary files laid down on the target disk.
Perhaps debsums could rise to the task. I was unable to find any
existing threads or RFEs on this topic.
Yes, it's likely there was some hardware issue, possibly with the cdrom
drive or the hard drive or their respective controllers, during the
install. Such issues *do* occur and *do* need to be dealt with if we
want our installers to be truly reliable and usable by everyone and
their mom. I have (sadly) installed many many versions of Microsoft
operating systems over the years, on this particular machine and on many
others, and have never had such a problem.
Perhaps there is concern that debsums or something similar would slow
down installs. It could be optimized, it could be localized to a
potentially relatively small set of critical system files, and it could
be made optional. Having had this experience, and other related ones
over many years of installing many distros on many hardware
configurations, I would definitely take the option. I'm sure the extra
time in the install would be minimal compared to the 14 hours I spent
yesterday finding and fixing these issues.
Maybe there is also concern that debsums itself could fail, and that it
would not be able to solve all possible problems, especially with truly
failing hardware. Of course those issues exist, but we can still do
what we can. I dream of the day that I'll be able to hand my mom an
ubuntu installer disk and be reasonably confident that she'll succeed if
success is at all possible.
** Affects: debian-installer (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: Unconfirmed
--
RFE: consider using debsums to improve reliability of install process
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/112398
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