Hello, Is this the appropriate forum for feedback on the debian-installer?
If not where is the best place? Anyway I tried installing Debian all the way from Windows using: [email protected] and got several comments on debian-installer (note: I used the graphical version): 1. It didn't ask me what site to use, rather it just assumed ftp.debian.org. 2. It didn't ask me what http_proxy settings to use, the proxy server at work can use better channels. It wouldn't hurt asking to confirm these details are correct IMHO before continuing. 3. I repeatedly get the failed message. Currently it is "Installation step failed: An installation step failed. You can try to run the failing item again from the menu, or skip it and choose something else. This failing step is "Select and install software". * The first time this happened (while installing base system) I got the buttons "Go back" and "Continue". It is no clear which each of these buttons do. Does "Continue" skip the step? That is the way I read it. Go back didn't take me back to the previous step like I expected, but took me into advanced mode. * More detailed information would be good, such as "what was happening at the time" (file being downloaded) and why it didn't work would be good (not sure what was happening the first view times, but the last time it was "Connection reset by peer" as seen by Ctrl+Alt+F4). * A novice user would not know to push Ctrl+Alt+F4 to get more information. It didn't seem to help much the first time I got the error either. 4. Repeating the same step again seems to result in the step being skipped entirely (downloading libmyspell3c2_3.1-18_i386.deb) 5. The relatively slow and unreliable downloading makes me wonder if there are networking issues (Ethernet Pro 100), it could also be because of point 1, above. However now that the system is installed, downloading seems to work fine ftp.debian.org. 6. Actually I lied, I just got a "bzip2: Data integrity error when decompressing Packages.gz", which resulted in apt-get forking to the background (huh?), so I can't run it again because /var/lib/apt/lists/lock is still locked from the apt-get process which is still running. Huh? 7. Killing the background apt-get and downloading the same file again worked just fine, maybe there really is something dodgy going on with the network card, I will have to investigate further. Anyway, just some thoughts. Please CC replies to me, thanks. I suspect this won't help, but here is a cut and paste of the screen after rebooting: === cut === dhcp21:~# aptitude update Get:1 http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release.gpg [189B] Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages/DiffIndex Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Sources/DiffIndex Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Sources Get:2 http://ftp.au.debian.org etch Release.gpg [378B] Get:3 http://ftp.au.debian.org etch Release [74.4kB] Get:4 http://ftp.au.debian.org etch/main Packages [4320kB] Get:5 http://ftp.au.debian.org etch/main Sources [1222kB] Fetched 5616kB in 16s (347kB/s) Reading package lists... Done dhcp21:~# aptitude Selecting previously deselected package wmii. (Reading database ... 65817 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking wmii (from .../archives/wmii_3.1-5_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package wmii-doc. Unpacking wmii-doc (from .../wmii-doc_1%3a1-3_all.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package zsh. Unpacking zsh (from .../archives/zsh_4.3.2-25_i386.deb) ... Setting up wmii (3.1-5) ... Setting up wmii-doc (1-3) ... Setting up zsh (4.3.2-25) ... Press return to continue. dhcp21:~# vim /etc/apt/sources.list dhcp21:~# aptitude update Get:1 http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release.gpg [189B] Get:2 http://ftp.debian.org etch Release.gpg [378B] Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release Get:3 http://ftp.debian.org etch Release [74.4kB] Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages/DiffIndex Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Sources/DiffIndex Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Sources Get:4 http://ftp.debian.org etch/main Packages [4320kB] Get:5 http://ftp.debian.org etch/main Sources [1222kB] 79% [4 Packages bzip2 3911680] [5 Sources 50355/1222kB 4%] 25.2kB/s 46sbzip2: Data integrity error when decompressing. Input file = (stdin), output file = (stdout) It is possible that the compressed file(s) have become corrupted. You can use the -tvv option to test integrity of such files. You can use the `bzip2recover' program to attempt to recover data from undamaged sections of corrupted files. Err http://ftp.debian.org etch/main Packages Sub-process bzip2 returned an error code (2) Fetched 5616kB in 1m32s (60.6kB/s) Reading package lists... Done W: Couldn't stat source package list http://ftp.debian.org etch/main Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.debian.org_debian_dists_etch_main_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory) W: Couldn't stat source package list http://ftp.debian.org etch/main Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.debian.org_debian_dists_etch_main_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory) W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems dhcp21:~# dhcp21:~# aptitude update E: Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock - open (11 Resource temporarily unavailable) E: Couldn't lock list directory..are you root? dhcp21:~# aptitude update E: Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock - open (11 Resource temporarily unavailable) E: Couldn't lock list directory..are you root? dhcp21:~# id uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root) dhcp21:~# aptitude update dhcp21:~# apt-get update E: Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock - open (11 Resource temporarily unavailable) E: Unable to lock the list directory dhcp21:~# ls -l /var/lib/apt/lists/lock -rw-r----- 1 root root 0 2007-01-29 14:22 /var/lib/apt/lists/lock dhcp21:~# fuser -v /var/lib/apt/lists/lock USER PID ACCESS COMMAND /var/lib/apt/lists/lock: root 3570 F.... apt-get dhcp21:~# kill 3570 dhcp21:~# apt-get update Get:1 http://ftp.debian.org etch Release.gpg [378B] Get:2 http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release.gpg [189B] Hit http://ftp.debian.org etch Release Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release Get:3 http://ftp.debian.org etch/main Packages [4320kB] Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages/DiffIndex Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Sources/DiffIndex Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Sources Get:4 http://ftp.debian.org etch/main Sources/DiffIndex [2023B] Fetched 4322kB in 39s (110kB/s) Reading package lists... Done === cut === -- Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
