Debian Install [was: Where is this Wednesday's Meeting?]

[Charles Steinkuehler]

Leo J Mauler wrote:
> Oh, and on another note: I'm once again jumping into the breach and
> trying Debian install yet again.  SuSE got too irritating, and all the
> press about Mandrake/RedHat going commercial (and in some areas jilting
> non-paying customers) has me all jittery about installing either one.
> 
> So I downloaded Debian 3.0_rc2 CDs (including the NONUS CD1) and will
> have another go at it.  I think I'll go with the 2.4 kernel, unless
> someone sends an E-mail yelling that I shouldn't.  :)

I just managed to muddle through a Debian install on a headless 1U 
server, with root on LVM + RAID.  It went pretty easy except for 
creating the initial ramdisk.  The way the Debian oriented instructions 
said to do it (add the raid/LVM modules, start raid and volume services, 
then exit /linuxrc) didn't work (the kernel couldn't find the root 
volume, either by name or by device number), so I fell-back and did it 
the way the RedHat system previously installed on the box worked 
(install modules, start raid/lvm, mount lvm root partition, do a 
pivot_root and peg real-root-device to 0x0100), which worked like a champ.

I did cheat and hook a CD and floppy up to the machine for the install 
(the floppy was required for the LVM and RAID modules)...with RedHat I'd 
gotten to the point I could do a full install by simply copying the 
kernel and initrd from the install media, and installing over the network.

I'm still floundering through dselect and apt to get the packages I want 
installed, then I need to configure apt-get for internet access so I can 
get security updates, but it seems to be going pretty well so-far.

-- 
Charles Steinkuehler
charles at steinkuehler.net