From: "Daniel W. Connolly" < conno...@beach.w3.org>
Subject: 0.93 Install Experience
Date: 1995/12/18
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Hi folks.
[Why isn't the address of this mailing list debian-u...@debian.org?]
I just installed debian 0.93R6, and I've got some questions and
comments. I'm sure a lot of these are known bugs, which brings me to
my first question:
*** Why do you keep the development stuff behind closed doors?
Why not make your best-effort stuff always available, like the rest of
the linux stuff?
Anyway... I have been a Slackware user for some time, and my system
started to get crufty -- ELF/a.out mixed stuff, XFree 2.x, etc. So I
upgraded to RedHat from their ftp site. Big mistake. Their stuff is
real easy on the surface level, but I quickly reached the limits of
their point-and-click tools, at which point I was on my own: the
package database is a DBM file: no grepping!
I've been tracking debian for some time, and the folks that put
together this system seem to have a keen sense of design and a lot of
in-depth unix/networking/security knolwedge. I tried out debian at
home, and was impressed at the way the installation anticipated my
situation, only bothered me with relevant questions, and generally
went smoothly.
My only reservation about debian is that there's no ELF-based release,
and I can't find any authoritative "How-To" documentation on mixing
ELF into the 0.93 release. In general, I can't figure out how the
developers do lots of stuff that they evidently do (from the results
in the debian-changes log). I sure wish the web site had more
up-to-date documentation.
But my RedHat system was in a scrogged state: no X development stuff,
no gs, etc. And they have no dselect equivalent -- finding and
installing relevant packages from their FTP site is a nightmare.
I subscribe to the PHT linux monthly CD, and I have a copy of 0.93
handy. So I decided I'd switch to debian today.
I started out by backing up /etc, /var, and stuff like that, and
making some boot/install floppies from the CD-ROM. Some questions at
this point:
*** Where's the INSTALL manual? My debian-0.93 directory looks like:
Contents Packages@ binary/ ms-dos/
Contents.gz TRANS.TBL disks/ source/
That directory sits inside a directory that looks like:
Packages-Master contrib/ debian-current@ ls-laR
Packages-Master.gz debian-0.93/ doc/ project/
README.DEBIAN debian-0.93R6@ info/ tools/
TRANS.TBL debian-bugs/ kernel/
I see now that there's a draft of an install manual at www.debian.org.
I'll have a look at that now...
*** Why do I have to make the three base disks? Why can't
the install process get that info from the CD-ROM?
But I pressed on...
I copied debian-0.93/disks/1440_boot_floppy.gz to a boot floppy, but
that doesn't work. The system just hangs at boot with no
diagnostic. The boot_floppy.gz has to be gunzipped before copying it
to /dev/fd0!
The installation manual doesn't cover that: it assumes you have
boot/root floppies handy. (see:
http://www.debian.org/Documentation/Debian/debian_4.html#SEC30)
Maybe you need an "If you're getting Debian installation materials
from the net..." section, and a "making boot/root floppies from CD"
section.
So I pressed on with the installation. (At this point, I formatted
my root partition, wiping out my config-files backup, which I had
foolishly placed in /tmp. :-{ )
*** why no quick-format option that skips the verify-blocks stuff?
*** what's the conventional wisdom on block size? Why does
debian use 1K -- Slackware and RHS allow me to choose.
And I continued with configuration
*** anybody working on DHCP support? Network configuration
is a pain!
I attempted to make a boot disk, but I think the disk I stuck in there
wasn't formatted.
*** at this point, the system hung hard, and had to be
rebooted.
I tried to continue the install, but I don't think the disks sync'd
during the reboot, and things were screwey. So I started the install
over again.
So I finally got the base system installed, and I went to dselect.
*** Ack! No IDE-CD support in the boot kernel!
I mounted my /usr/src partition and grabbed my old kernel with IDE-CD
support. Then I had to get the lilo.deb package via ftp, so I could
get that kernel to boot!
After all that:
*** Ack! dselect can't find the packages on the CD-ROM!
It seems to want all the .deb files in one directory, rather than
the base/, admin/, etc. directories in which they actually reside.
I tried symlink games to no avail.
I finally got the new dselect (1.0.8, I think) via ftp, and tried
again. No Joy. It detected my CD-ROM nicely, but there's no stable/
directory on my CD. I had to reverse-engineer the stable/binary
structure with symlinks in /tmp.
Finally, dselect was happy, and I picked out a zillion packages.
*** The conflict resolution system is WAY COOL!
A few glitches:
** "a2ps suggests postscript_previewer" -- I already had
gs and ghostview selected
** What's the deal with xman and xmanpages?
** where's pbm?
** some package suggested word-list. I'm pretty sure I had
the English dict package selected.
Hmm... something goofy happened with bind during installation, but I
can't figure out what. Hmmm... there seems to be some black magic in
the bind configuration: no root cache file provided (have to extract
it from doc) /var/run/named.pid has to be touch'd etc..
*** shouldn't linux boxes be set up with caching bind servers
by default, rather than using a local nameserver for _all_
queries?
Since I had deleted my backup of config files, I got to configure X
AGAIN. The XFree86 tools worked pretty well, but debian provides
no mouse configuration, and I had to conjure up that knowledge again.
I'm sure these are all known bugs. I'm looking forward to tools that
exploit the debian bugs database:
Error: /etc/foobar.config not found
help
!!! Looking at the display, I see a diagnostic
that is a typical symptom of
debian-bug #342342, which is fixed in version
1.3-5 of the foobar package. Would you care to
upgrade? yes
connecting to ftp.debian.org... list of mirrors retrieved.
connecting to local mirror tsx-11.mit.edu
retrieving foobar-1.3-5.deb ... done
installing foobar-1.3-5.deb ... done
configuring foobar-1.3-5.deb ...
do you want (e)xpert setup or (n)ovice? n
More later...
Daniel W. Connolly "We believe in the interconnectedness of all things"
Research Scientist, MIT/W3C PGP: EDF8 A8E4 F3BB 0F3C FD1B 7BE0 716C FF21
< conno...@w3.org> http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/People/Connolly/
From: Bruce Perens < B...@Pixar.com>
Subject: Re: 0.93 Install Experience
Date: 1995/12/18
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"Daniel W. Connolly" < conno...@beach.w3.org>
> [Why isn't the address of this mailing list debian-u...@debian.org?]
It could be, but it would just slow down the mailing list.
> *** Why do you keep the development stuff behind closed doors?
> Why not make your best-effort stuff always available, like the rest of
> the linux stuff?
If you want to be on the developers mailing list, just ask. Currently,
we try to discourage the random user from installing development stuff
because it is "broken" in various ways. When it is more stable we will
encourage non-developers to install it.
> Their stuff is
> real easy on the surface level, but I quickly reached the limits of
> their point-and-click tools, at which point I was on my own: the
> package database is a DBM file: no grepping!
Redhat watches us very carefully, and is receptive to coming to some
sort of join with Debian. I think they will continue to improve.
I wish I could say the same for Slackware - the invitation's open, Pat.
> *** Where's the INSTALL manual ***?
Not on your CD. ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/doc/debian-manual.ps . It's
a 100-page draft. Only a few divergences from reality, so it's good
reading.
> *** Why do I have to make the three base disks? Why can't
> the install process get that info from the CD-ROM?
I got that working on my own CD. The PHT disk is a copy of the FTP
area, which isn't quite set up for that. When I issue the next
installation floppy set, I'll make it possible to install the base
from CD (or even FTP).
> *** why no quick-format option that skips the verify-blocks stuff?
It would make sense for IDE disks, I agree.
> *** what's the conventional wisdom on block size? Why does
debian use 1K -- Slackware and RHS allow me to choose.
When the installer was written mkfs.ext2 ignored those parameters. That
may not be the case any longer - I'll have to check.
> *** Ack! No IDE-CD support in the boot kernel!
My latest install disks have CD capable kernels.
Bruce
--
Bruce Perens < B...@Pixar.com> Pixar Animation Studios