Various problems in section D.4 of the ppc installation guide
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
installation-guide (Ubuntu) |
Confirmed
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
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-
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://
[...]
W: Failure trying to run: chroot /media/target mount -t proc proc /proc
The document suggests "file:/
I had more success with (the advertised)
# debootstrap --arch powerpc edgy /media/target/ http://
[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/
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-
language-
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)
6.10 is not supported anymore. Could you check if the installation guide has been fixed in a later version of Ubuntu?