Last saturday (4.10.) I installed the first mips
machine (despite) using d-i. The following is a little
list of things that caused problems:
It somehow needs append="/linuxrc" as argument to the bootp()/
command. As I do not know the mips-architecture and the needed
tools like tip22 well, I can only guess that this either means
we need a patched version of tip22 or d-i must be changed on
not having a /linuxrc doing the mounting and replacing itself
and calling init but a /sbin/init that does the work and
replaces itself with a link to busybox.
In the shell (that is on tty2) when beeing in the last line
and pressing tab or cursor up, the whole screen is blanked.
(The content gets restored when switching ttys) This might be
a problem with the kernel's framebuffer-console, though the sh
after chrooting in a partly installed base-system does not
have this problem.
network-configuration is utterly strange
(It first asks for a IP, then waits long time, then
again asks for a IP and some more information. Only after
selecting configure a static network twice it has asked
for all information and still insists on "something has gone wrong".)
When I start with DEBCONF_PRIORITY=low I only have to select
netcfg-static once and everything works...
partitioning does not work at all... (At least before having
installed the basesystem, fdisk works in chroot /target)
when base install almost all time is consumed for things like
calling /usr/lib/debootstrap/pkgdetails. In this time no
output is done. (So it looks like it hanged itself) This is
only a cosmetical problem.
installing the base-system seems to fail due to #213280 when
selecting "sid" (using debootstrap-udeb 0.2.9). Selecting
"sarge" seems to work.
Installing the kernel does not seem to work. ( module-init-tools
wants to cat a /etc/modprobe.d/arch/generic file, which does not exist,
touching this file causes the kernel to be downloaded, but arcboot
seems to have problems. db_get arcboot/bootdevice seems to return
an empty $RET and /etc/arcboot.conf is buggy in respect with root, too.)
(When trying to make arboot work in chroot /target, is also has
problems with missing file(1))
I think the module-init-tools problem is just caused by falsly
assuming mips kernel uses initrd. While arcboot seems to use
strange tricks that need deeper work.
The installers userfriendlyness is still missing worlds compared
to the the old b-fs. One often does not know, where one currently
is, but is unexpectently asked questions so one can only guess what it
currently plans to do. (I hope this is not intentional). I also
hope things like availability of a "Install kernel" item when this
only triggers the already failed "install basesystem" will
go away.
Hochachtungsvoll,
Bernhard R. Link
--
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve
nor will he ever receive either. (Benjamin Franklin)
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