Bug#344328: installation-reports: Debian Sarge installation on Alpha (PWS 433au)

2005-12-26 Thread Frans Pop
On Wednesday 21 December 2005 23:10, Bob Tracy wrote:
 The guided partitioning feature completely ignored the second hard
 disk other than to acknowledge its existence :-).

Hmm. Yes. Guided partitioning does not support dividing the partitions to 
be created over two different drives.
Installing Debian completely on the second drive using guided partitioning 
should be possible though, but I don't know enough about alpha to know if 
that's supported by the bootloader.


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Bug#344328: installation-reports: Debian Sarge installation on Alpha (PWS 433au)

2005-12-21 Thread Bob Tracy
Package: installation-reports
Severity: normal


INSTALL REPORT

Debian-installer-version: 
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/3.1_r0a/alpha/bt-cd/  downloaded in Sept. 
2005.
uname -a: Linux smirkin 2.4.27-2-generic #1 Tue Nov 22 17:12:59 UTC 2005 alpha 
GNU/Linux
Date: 18 Dec 2005, 18:00 CST
Method: booted and installed from CD set

Machine: DEC Personal Workstation 433au
Processor: Alpha EV56, var. 7, rev. 0
Memory: 576 MB (six slots: 2x64, 4x128)
Root Device: SCSI - Model: RZ1CC-BA (C) DEC Rev: 883F at ID 0
Root Size/partition table:

Disk /dev/sda: 4290 MB, 4290600960 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 521 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes


8 partitions:
#   start   end  size fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
  a:1*1*0*  ext2  
  b:1*   10*9*  ext2  /boot
  c:   10*   41*   30*  ext2  /
  d:   41*   72*   31*  swap  
  e:   72*  193*  121*  ext2  /tmp
  f:  193*  376*  182*  ext2  /var
  g:  376*  522*  146*  ext2  /home

Disk /dev/sdb: 18.2 GB, 18210037760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2213 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes


3 partitions:
#   start   end  size fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
  a:1* 1241* 1240*  ext2  /usr
  b: 1241* 2214*  973*  ext2  /opt

Output of lspci and lspci -n:
:00:03.0 Ethernet controller: Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 
21142/43 (rev 30)
:00:04.0 IDE interface: Silicon Image, Inc. (formerly CMD Technology Inc) 
PCI0646 (rev 01)
:00:07.0 Non-VGA unclassified device: Intel Corp. 82378ZB/IB, 82379AB (SIO, 
SIO.A) PCI to ISA Bridge (rev 43)
:00:0c.0 VGA compatible controller: Digital Equipment Corporation PBXGB 
[TGA2] (rev 22)
:00:14.0 PCI bridge: Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21152 (rev 02)
:01:09.0 SCSI storage controller: QLogic Corp. ISP1020 Fast-wide SCSI (rev 
05)

:00:03.0 0200: 1011:0019 (rev 30)
:00:04.0 0101: 1095:0646 (rev 01)
:00:07.0 : 8086:0484 (rev 43)
:00:0c.0 0300: 1011:000d (rev 22)
:00:14.0 0604: 1011:0024 (rev 02)
:01:09.0 0100: 1077:1020 (rev 05)

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]
Partition hard drives:  [O]
Create file systems:[O]
Mount partitions:   [O]
Install base system:[O]
Install boot loader:[O]
Reboot: [E]

Comments/Problems:

First reboot following base system install failed because SRM attempted to
boot from previous boot device by default (the CD-ROM drive).  Was able to
interrupt SRM boot (cntl-C) and perform default boot from first hard disk,
after which everything went smoothly.

Partitioning process was OK, but cumbersome.  Although the needed information
is probably in the release notes and/or installation manual, it would have
been useful to have the partitioning application provide minimum and suggested
partition sizes based on configured mount points.  Since this was my first
Debian installation, I assumed Debian couldn't possibly be any more bloated
than RedHat/Fedora and/or Mandriva, and everything worked out fine :-).  With
the benefit of hindsight, I would have made my / partition slightly bigger
so as to support additional kernel module directories and such in /lib.

Installation process should suggest far more strongly that people use the
task-based package selection process.  Aptitude's interface is hardly
intuitive, and there should be a way to back up and correct the mistake of
thinking selecting individual packages is the way to go.  Having made that
mistake, hitting ctlaltdel was the closest thing to a soft recovery I
could have hoped for: the machine rebooted and the installation continued at
the appropriate point.

Instructions at bottom of template on how to submit installation report
resulted in report going to Debian's junk in-box.  Now trying reportbug.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
Architecture: alpha
Kernel: Linux 2.4.27-2-generic
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1)


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Bug#344328: installation-reports: Debian Sarge installation on Alpha (PWS 433au)

2005-12-21 Thread Frans Pop
On Wednesday 21 December 2005 20:58, Bob Tracy wrote:
 First reboot following base system install failed because SRM attempted
 to boot from previous boot device by default (the CD-ROM drive).  Was
 able to interrupt SRM boot (cntl-C) and perform default boot from first
 hard disk, after which everything went smoothly.

This apparently is a known issue for Alpha. I am told it is very hard to 
get the mapping Linux device names to SRM device names right.

 Partitioning process was OK, but cumbersome.  Although the needed
 information is probably in the release notes and/or installation
 manual, it would have been useful to have the partitioning application
 provide minimum and suggested partition sizes based on configured mount
 points.

Hmm, didn't you use the guided partitioning feature. This should set 
sane default sizes for different partitioning schemes [1] 

 Since this was my first Debian installation, I assumed Debian 
 couldn't possibly be any more bloated than RedHat/Fedora and/or
 Mandriva, and everything worked out fine :-).  With the benefit of

Sane assumption :-)

 hindsight, I would have made my / partition slightly bigger so as to
 support additional kernel module directories and such in /lib.

The guided partitioning could have resulted in the same problem. I think 
we have improved this for Etch versions of the installer.

Thanks for your installation report.

Cheers,
FJP

[1] Only if you can format a full disk or have continuous free space 
available though. It is however possible to first free up space and then 
use guided partitioning to set it up.


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Bug#344328: installation-reports: Debian Sarge installation on Alpha (PWS 433au)

2005-12-21 Thread Bob Tracy
Frans Pop wrote:
 Hmm, didn't you use the guided partitioning feature. This should set 
 sane default sizes for different partitioning schemes [1] 

The guided partitioning feature completely ignored the second hard
disk other than to acknowledge its existence :-).  The primary drive
is only 4 GB (sheesh...  I remember when I would have *killed* for a
drive that size), which makes for a very cramped environment for
other than fairly basic installations.  To be fair, the suggested
partitions and corresponding sizes were pretty close to optimal if I
had been limited to that one drive.  Also to be fair, I haven't seen
an installation partitioning program that actively encourages the use
of other than the primary hard disk for required partitions (e.g.,
/usr if everything isn't in /) since working with ATT 3B2
computers back in the '80's.

 Thanks for your installation report.

T'was an enjoyable experience.  Debian appeared to be the best-
supported option as far as Linux on Alpha, and I'd say appearances
were *not* deceiving :-).  That's not to slam other distros, but
rather, to confirm that Debian has its act together.

-- 
---
Bob Tracy   WTO + WIPO = DMCA? http://www.anti-dmca.org
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