Installation Report: New Install

[Michael Jarosch-2]

Hi there!

As the 2.1 was released lately, I took a chance and installed it.
I had a few problems with some bugs, which shouldn't be too hard to fix.
But it was rather tricky to get some workarounds and I guess the vast
majority of newbies had given up with my setup before they finished
installing. On the other hand, my setup is not that usual (for newbies).
But let's get into it!

My system:

Asus A8V-Deluxe
2 SATA-HD (/dev/sda and /dev/sdb) in a RAID 1
DVD-Drive on /dev/hda

I guess, the rest doesn't matter that much.


First of all (and besides the installing) I burned the DVD-Image with
that system (but with 64studio 2.0) on the DVD. I always used to verify
the burning with

md5sum /dev/hda

but this time, it won't work. The image had the correct checksum, both
burned DVDs hadn't - but they both had the same "wrong" md5sum. Asuming,
that both DVDs can't have exactly the same error, I used one of them for
the install. As far I can tell, the errors I experienced had nothing to
do with a defective DVD.

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Now, back to the bugs! :)
The installer detected my firewire as the first ethernet-adaptor and -
of course - failed configuring it via dhcp. I remember that this was a
topic on 64studio-devel loooong time ago (maybe for version 1.0 ?),
saying something like: "What's the use of a default configured
ethernet-over-firewire, anyway?" Well, at least on an installation it
really doesn't look that smart to me.
As I recognized the problem, I configured my (real) ethernet-adaptor by
hand - so I don't know if that had lead me into trouble if I haven't had
an internet-connection while the installation. I guess, it was nothing
but a bit of confusion, then.

------------------------------------------------------
Next:
I configured a RAID 1in the partitioning-tool of the installer. As it
was time to install the base system the installer stopped with an error
message I can't remember. But on console 4 one could read:

"Package mdadm is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted or is only
available from another source.
Package mdadm has no installation candidate."

The package mdadm is on DVD, but it's an udeb, not a deb. So:
mdadm_2.5.6-9_amd64.deb must be added to the installation-image or
anyone with a RAID-setup may get some trouble! (Don't know the status
quo of the 32bit-installation. Maybe this has to be checked.)
If you are in trouble, solve it that way: Download the fitting version
of mdadm for your system from

http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/mdadm/mdadm_2.5.6-9_amd64.deb

and save it on an USB-Stick or something like that.
Begin the installation procedure and go through it till the installation
of the base-system.
Switch to a console and mount the USB-Stick with

"mount /target/mnt"

"chroot /target"

"cd /mnt"

Type "dpkg --unpack mdadm_2.5.6-9_amd64.deb" but don't press ENTER, yet!

Switch back to the installer. Wait till about 50% is done and the text
"extracting the base system" (or sth like that) appears. (This is the
only time, when apt and dpkg is NOT in use and when you can execute dpkg
without causing the installer to stop with an error. If you install
mdadm before the installation of the base-system, it would be deleted.
You also can't configure APT's sources.list, to make the installer use
internet sources - it will be overridden by another sources.list.)
Now switch to your console and press ENTER. mdadm should be installed.

Everything should work, now.


------------------------------------------------------
I had the USB-Stick in use while installation. The installer therefore
added a line in /etc/fstab:

/dev/sdg        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto  0       0

Didn't know, it's a floppy! :)
O.k. - nothing serious!

------------------------------------------------------
I like the console for updating/upgrading the system and for
configuration. After installation I noticed, there was no german keymap
installed. This problem can be solved by typing

"dpkg-reconfigure console-data"

but it would be nice, if the installer could install a keymap by the
data I was given at the beginning of the installation.

------------------------------------------------------

While talking about the console: Could it be possible to add some lines
to the .bashrc by default?
I like the bash_completion very much and I also like the use of lesspipe
and colors. My .bashrc looks like this:

# ~/.bashrc: executed by bash(1) for non-login shells.

export PS1='\h:\w\$ '
umask 022

# You may uncomment the following lines if you want `ls' to be colorized:
export LS_OPTIONS='--color=auto'
eval "`dircolors`"
alias ls='ls $LS_OPTIONS'
alias ll='ls $LS_OPTIONS -l'
alias l='ls $LS_OPTIONS -lA'

# Some more alias to avoid making mistakes:
# alias rm='rm -i'
# alias cp='cp -i'
# alias mv='mv -i'

eval $(lesspipe)
if [ -r /etc/bash_completion ]; then
        . /etc/bash_completion
fi


...not much work, but a good support for everyone, whether (s)he likes
or dislikes the console.

------------------------------------------------------

O.k. that's all for the bugs and wishes! There will be some questions
following this email - but it's better to seperate them into different
threads!

Mitsch

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