Various problems in section D.4 of the ppc installation guide

[schnittchen]

I'm referring to part "D.4. Installing Ubuntu from a Unix/Linux System" of the
documentation found on the alternative install cd for 6.10
(probably also found elsewhere). I have tried to follow the instructions several
times on my iBook G4 and am unable to get a properly configured system out of that.
There are problems in the instructions spanning all degrees of severity. Below is a
report on my experiences, listing the problems i found. Some do not really fit
here but are listed to give the complete story. My overall impression is that the
method has/the instructions have not been tested enough, especially with respect to
the ppc specific parts.

I used the livecd as a linux host, a possibility that is maybe worthwhile
mentioning in the head of the section. It would also make up for a good candidate
for testing the instructions since it's pretty much the only "install ubuntu
from a running ubuntu" situation apart from ubuntu-ubuntu-multiboot.

In this case step D.4.2 collapses to "apt-get install debootstrap"

General notes:
* the "NOTE: Apt must be configured beforehand by creating a sources.list and
 running apt-get update." in [D.4.4.4] did not apply for me -- it just worked.
However, package authentication did NOT work, causing apg-get install to ask
about that, causing in turn some things later on to fail rather silently. The
instructions should enable the user to set everything up to get apt-get install
working without glitches.
* the instructions refer to manpages, like man yaboot.conf. The user should be
advised to run "apt-get install man" early enough.

So here's my experiences:

[D.4.1]
* got root (step not mentioned in instructions)
* made filesystem + swap; mount + swapon, no problems

[D.4.2]
(see above)

[D.4.3]
first try:
# debootstrap --arch powerpc edgy /media/target file:///cdrom/ubuntu/
[...]
W: Failure trying to run: chroot /media/target mount -t proc proc /proc

The document suggests "file:/cdrom/ubuntu/" (is this a typo?)

I had more success with (the advertised)
# debootstrap --arch powerpc edgy /media/target/ http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu

[D.4.4]
chrooted w/o problems

[D.4.4.1]
made fstab with root, swap, proc and sys.
It is probably cleaner and should be suggested for everybody to mount the
special devices from outside the chroot:

# mount -t proc none /media/target/proc
# mount -o bind /dev /media/target/dev

(these lines are adapted from gentoo install docs)
The reader should be told not to trust the output of "mount" but look at /proc/mounts
instead.

[D.4.4.2]
I had no problems with this step.

# dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

Here the user is confronted with questions the average ubuntu user never sees.
Is there a way to have this closer to the standard install, e.g. use the interactive
keyboard detection mechanism?

[D.4.4.3]
/etc/hosts is mentioned but never handled.

Assuming network has already been configured in the hosting linux system, the following
procedure would be sufficient:

* replace /etc/network/interfaces with the content from the installation doc (in order
to have loopback after booting into the system)
* install packages necessary to setup basic networking (for most users, this will be a
NOOP, dhclient is already there)
* copy /etc/resolv.conf over from the host system

Users who want to have other interfaces than lo handled by ifup/ipdown can configure that
inside the new system later. Users who use network manager should be advised to install the
appropriate packages before rebooting into the fresh system.

[D.4.4.4]
As mentioned before:

WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
  language-pack-de-base language-pack-de language-pack-gnome-de-base
  language-pack-gnome-de
Install these packages without verification [y/N]?

[D.4.5 and D.4.6]
Again: Install these packages without verification [y/N]?

I think things are out of order here.
I suggest:
1) apt-get install yaboot
2) apt-get install <kernel>
The other way around, installing an initrd kernel will give a severe warning.
Not sure this (1-2) way works since i actually did (2), then
"apt-get remove <kernel>", then (1)

The user should be taught briefly how to tell if their kernel wants initrd.
The example /etc/yaboot.conf in the installation instructions should have
a "initrd=..." line that works most of the time. There should be a comment
like "leave out the initrd=... line unless you installed an initrd kernel".

The use of ybin is never mentioned in the instructions, so users will not get
a bootable system!
I tried my own running ybin, which complained about missing hfsutils.
After "apt-get install hfsutils", running ybin gave

Failed to initialize HFS working directories: No such file or directory
ybin: /dev/hda2 appears to have never had a bootstrap installed, please run mkofboot

which is wrong since that partition had been initialized before in a previous
installation attempt.

Digging a bit deeper, i could not find any hfsutils command that did not give

Failed to initialize HFS working directories: No such file or directory

so i'm stuck here. I know i did get further in a previous attempt, but cannot reproduce
that here and now.

Here's a list of problems i additionally encountered in the previous attempt, from the
top of my head:

* The instructions advertise to use
# adduser myusername
# adduser myusername admin
and "%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL" in /etc/sudoers, or alternatively to set a root password.
(quote: If you don't want to follow this configuration, then remember to set a root password:)
Taking this literally would leave you with an open root account.
There should be instructions on how to disallow root login in order to get things the
ubuntu way.
* no shadow passwords! The user should be instructed on how to set that up.
* sudo tasksel install ubuntu-desktop (after rebooting) fails. I found out that it's because of
the aforementioned "WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!". tasksel calls
some apt tool with -y, which is configured to abort on such severe things in the "-y" case.
So i got around that -- but the document also says

tasksel will now get on with installing the packages that make up the Ubuntu desktop, which will
take a while. When it's finished, you should be presented with a graphical login prompt.

That was wrong in my case, tasksel did not start gdm.
* The X server was misconfigured and would not start. (to be precise: gdm would try 3 times, then
give up, showing me the error log)

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

6.10 is not supported anymore. Could you check if the installation guide has been fixed in a later version of Ubuntu?

[Martin Meredith (mez)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

This is frankly absurd; it only "lacks the information we need to investigate the problem" if you haven't actually read the bug report. Reopening as I don't approve of wasting bug reporters' time asking whether they can reproduce the problem when they've already put considerable effort into describing it clearly.