"Christian T. Steigies" wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 18, 2001 at 09:58:10PM -0400, Robert Schweikert wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have an install problem with woddy and would appreciate help to get it
> > fixed.
> Have you ever installed a debian system before?
No.
> If not, I'd suggest you use the stable version for installing, you can even
> get it on CD.
But there everything works already and installing it may not be much help to
the project. Although, one could argue that the mistakes I make would not be
made if I had installed Debian previously. Then again where does this leave the
user that installs Debian for the first time from floppies?
>
>
> > Background:
> >
> > I hav a system with 2 hard drives, one scsi (sda1-4) and one ide
> > (hda1-4). My currently running Linux system runs of the scsi drive and I
> > am trying to install woddy onto the ide drive. I created the rescue,
>
> > root and driver floppies, and all of thie is working. I downloaded all
> > the packages in main/binary-i386 and contrib/binary-i386 and placed them
> > on the ide drive where I want to install woddy.
>
> You want to install woody on hda and you downloaded lost of files to hda to
> use them for installing?
Yes, that's the idea.
> I don't think this will work. One of the steps
> while installing is "initialize linux partition", on my box (other arch
> though) the partition is erased by that step, so no more downloaded files.
My plan should work as I do have the option to mount an already initialized
partition. Which is what I am doing. The files are all there and I can see them
in the browser that lets me pick the path to the Release file in the
binary-i386 directory.
>
> You want to put them on the scsi disk, _if_ you think you have to download
> all those packages.
I cannot put them on the scsi disk. The scsi disk is formatted with XFS and is
not recognized by the install procedure, as I expected, since XFS is not yet
officially included in the kernel.
>
>
> > When I am using my running system, as right now I mount the ide drive as
> > /ideDr as follows
> >
> >
> > # mount /dev/hda1 /ideDr/
> >
> > # mount /dev/hda4 /ideDr/usr
> >
> > and listing the distribution directory produces the following
> >
> >
> > # ls /ideDr/usr/dists/woddy/main/binary-i386/
> >
> > Packages base editors hamradio math oldlibs sound web
> >
> > Packages.gz comm electronics interpreters misc otherosfs tex x11
> >
> > Release devel games libs net science text
> >
> > admin doc graphics mail news shells utils
> >
> > According to my thinking this is all I should need, as this is
> > everything that's on the ftp site. However, according to the
> > installation program I am doing something wrong.
>
> You have downloaded _everything_?
Everything in /debian/dists/woodymain/binary-i386 and
/debian/dists/woody/contrib/binary-i386
> WHY?
Laziness, I didn't have to pick and choose through the packages
> If you have such a fast net accesss,
I don't, I "misuse" my laptop to transfer data back and forth between the place
where I have fast access, but cannot install just what I want and my machine at
home, where I can install as I please.
> why don't you use apt to download packages as you need them?
Will do once I have the basic system up and running and I only need to upgrade
a package here and there.
> Saves time,
> bandwidth, the rainforest, and does not pervert the idea behind all the
> tools. If you have no net access on that machine, look for the basedeps.tgz
> thread here.
>
> > Here are the steps I am following:
> >
> > 1.) boot the system from the rescue floppy
> > 2.) load the root file system from the second floppy
> > 3.) configure keyboard
> > 4.) initialize the swap space
> > 5.) mount /dev/hda1 to /
> > 6.) mount /dev/hda3 to /home
> > 7.) mount /dev/hda4 to /usr
> you skipped initializing hda1, hda3 and hda4...
>
> > 8.) install the kernel and modules from the rescue floppy
> > 9.) try to install the base system
> >
> > and this is where things go wrong. When I try to let the installer find
> > the release directory it is not found. When I point the installer to
> > /target the release packages are not found. When I point the installer
> > to /target/usr the release packages are not found. WHen I provide the
> > full path i.e. /target/usr/dists/woddy/main/binary-i386 the stuff still
> > isn't found. In all cases I get the following message:
> Well, I don't think the installer was designed to get the base packages from
> the partition it is installing onto. You'd better put them on a second
> partition.
> > This certainly beats the hell out of me. Any suggestions? I cannot put
> > the packages on my scsi drive as I am running the 2.4.3 kernel there
> > using the XFS file system which is not recognized by the kernel on the
> > rescue floppy.
>
> Lame excuse. Format a partition with a sane filesystem.
I consider XFS sane, matter of opinion. Working on SGI for a long time I have
come to appreciate the stability and quick recovery of XFS after disaster
strikes.
> Why don't you use the "home" partition for storing the debs, install them
> from there, and when
> you're done mount it as home partition (move the user dirs to that one).
> But you do not have to download the whole distribution anyway...
>
> > I would really like to get this going so I can create some packages and
> > start the developer/maintainer application process.
>
> I suggest you install stable. IIRC the application process does not force
> you to install the unstable/testing boot-floppies to get processed (do you
> know why there are called UNSTABLE?).
Yes, but I figured testing (woody) would be a step better then unstable (sid).
> After you installed unstable and if
> you still really want to live on the bleeding edge, you have two choices.
> Install unstable in a chroot, there are tools out there that help you with
> that (debootstrap or dbootstrap? wanna-build also has something, there are
> instructions in the list-archives, etc).
Thanks, I haven't thought of that.
> This is the preferred option, if unstable goes wild, you only loose your
> chroot (which you have backed up
> before) but still have your stable install to work with.
IS this the best, or common way to work on the project? Maybe I am starting at
the wrong end?
> It also has the advantage that you can use sbuild and your chroot to find all
> Build-Depends
> errors in your packages easily (if you don't find them, the buildds will
> come after you :-)
>
> The second option is, upgrade stable -> unstable/testing.
> apt-get dist-upgrade
Yes, I though of that, but than I have to drag all packages over my 56K modem
and that's what I kind of would like to avoid. I don't mind downloading through
the night and during the daytime when I am at work, but I do mind if the
download takes more time than that. ANd updating the whole distribution will
take a long time I suspect.
>
> See man page for details.
Thanks for comments.
Robert
>
>
> Christian
> --
> http://people.debian.org/~cts/
--
Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU
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