Author Topic: First installation :-(  (Read 10514 times)

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First installation :-(
« on: December 09, 2004, 01:56:11 pm »
Hi,

I've finally got spare PC to try Pluto. I've used Bootable CD, but installation ended quite fast. It didn't recognize my DVD RW (Sony rw d22a) drive, so further installation was impossible.

I've been to Debian some years ago and I remember that I switched to Suse just because of that - and now history repeats. I haven't found any futher links on what kernel module is needed for that drive ...

I guess my second try will be Suse 9.2, but I will loose RPM packages and will have to go from sources. Will report on that.

I just wanted to point out some obstacles that are waiting users when installing Debian Sarge (I know this doesn't depend on Pluto, if Debian still fails to recognize HW properly) - that's why you've beed selling HW bundled with SW...

Could you please give any advice, how to start on another distro - what packages to start with, how to compile, etc....

Regards,

Rob.

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« Reply #1 on: December 09, 2004, 04:59:04 pm »
Hi Rob,

Debian should work (I'll address that in a sec), but first if you want to use Suse it shouldn't be a big problem.   Installing and building everything from hand would be a total nightmare since there are around 300 software packages needed.  To solve this and support non-Debian platforms, we wrote a generic back-end that abstracts all the dependency issues in a platform-independent manner.  For example, the database knows that if you want to run our Bluetooth Dongle on Linux, you need Bluez, which requires x and y, which requires z, etc., and on Windows it requires other libraries.

When you completed the installation wizard, one of the options was to just to get the Wrapper Script.  This is a generic shell script that call another script which is responsible for getting the software.  The wrapper passes in the name of the software, where to get it, where to put it, etc.  It would probably be faster and easier to just create a script that does the same for Suse than to do it by hand.  Not to mention that once the script was done, any time you wanted to do a re-install, you would just let the script do it automatically rather than repeating the process by hand each time.

We'll help in any way possible since we want to support as many platforms as possible.  To do this, you can do an svn checkout  (see http://plutohome.com/support/index.php?section=document&docID=101) of the directory ConfirmDependencies_Script.  The Debian script is ConfirmDependencies_Debian.sh.  So we would just need a script for Suse that did the same thing.  It’s only 102 lines—so it’s not too bad.

Then there is the issue of the package names.  I think Suse uses RPM packages, right?  Hopefully the packages and names are similar.  No matter what, whether you installed the packages by hand or wanted to use the script, you would need to lookup the corresponding package names for Suse.  There is a link here: http://plutohome.com/download/stdpackages.txt to all the package names in Debian.  It’s just a tab delimited file, you can use in a spreadsheet or editor.  If you add a column next to the Debian name with the names of the corresponding Suse packages, we’ll have someone here put those names in the database.    If there are more packages, or less, just make a note, and we’ll adjust the master database accordingly.  Then, on the web site there will be a ‘Suse’ platform option, which will give you a wrapper script with all the Suse files, and the Suse version of the installer.  You’ll see from our ConfirmDependencies_Script that the wrapper passes in the package name, the source, the repository name, the version, etc.  It also passes in the type: get from package, download as a tar, get from svn, etc.  Only the ‘get from package’ (which is ConfirmDependencies_Debian.sh) will be specific to Debian.  We have separate scripts to download from http/ftp, etc., that should be the same for all distros.  So, if you email me back the package names in that stdpackages.txt file, and the Suse version of the ‘get package’ script (email to my username here at plutohome.com), I’ll put it on the main server and we should then have an auto-install for Suse.

NOW, back to the real issue of why Debian doesn’t work.  That drive appears to be a standard ATAPI IDE drive, right?  So it should work with the Debian installer.  You were able to burn the Kick Start CD, correct?  And it boots and you see the Debian logo and the installation starts, right?  At what point does it fail?  What error message do you see on the screen?  We’ll see if we can figure out what went wrong.

Thanks,
Aaron

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« Reply #2 on: December 09, 2004, 10:23:03 pm »
Quote from: "aaron.b"
Hi Rob,

.....

NOW, back to the real issue of why Debian doesn’t work.  That drive appears to be a standard ATAPI IDE drive, right?  So it should work with the Debian installer.  You were able to burn the Kick Start CD, correct?  And it boots and you see the Debian logo and the installation starts, right?  At what point does it fail?  What error message do you see on the screen?  We’ll see if we can figure out what went wrong.

Thanks,
Aaron


Hi,

thanks for all great info. Well my Debian ended when CD drive should be detected. I have plain new PC (there is no OS on it) and Sony DWD RW ...
Debian goes to boot screen, I press Enter, then specify languages etc.. and then automatic CD drive discovery begins - and it says it cannot find any CD drive, I've tried several Kernel modules offered but none works. I've Googled all the way for this drive maybe only to get module name for DVD drive but nogo. So I'm actually stock. If I get over this one easily, then will probably continue with Debian all the way - we'll see.

I've also tried new Debian installer (netinstall image) but just same thing happens.

If you have any good advice, it'll be more than welcome.

and thanks for all efforts,


regards,

Rob.

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« Reply #3 on: December 10, 2004, 09:29:23 am »
Quote from: "rr"




I've also tried new Debian installer (netinstall image) but just same thing happens.

...

regards,

Rob.


Hi,

I have some new info. I've tried Debian net install (Debian installer beta release) and funny is that if I boot with default linux kernel, drive is detected and system goes beyond that point. But if I set linux26, same things happen. Since Pluto is set up to Linux26 by default, the same behaviour is normal.

I have no idea, what could be wrong here - IMHO linux 26 should be better suited for HW detection ?

I'll try to get some advice from Debian guys and see what will happen.

How much will I loose if I setup default kernel instead of 2.6 ?

I'd just like to set Pluto system to see it working. Then I'll make consideration how to set it up for more stable  use...

Regards,

Rob.

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« Reply #4 on: December 10, 2004, 09:58:33 am »
Hi,

I saw your problem and went google-ing for your DVD writer model. It seems that it comes in at least three interface flavors: ATAPI (IDE/ATA connector), USB 2.0 and Firewire. Which one is yours?

I assume it's not ATAPI since those get detected right away, so it's probably one of the other two.

You say that SuSE detects it, so that gives us some hope. If you tell me which kind of unit yours is, we may be able to find a solution to this. If it's USB, try loading the usb-storage module if it isn't loaded.

Quote
I have some new info. I've tried Debian net install (Debian installer beta release) and funny is that if I boot with default linux kernel, drive is detected and system goes beyond that point. But if I set linux26, same things happen. Since Pluto is set up to Linux26 by default, the same behaviour is normal.


It's not the kernel that does the actual autodetect. After installation, it's this program called "discover" that does that and loads the appropriate modules, but that program isn't used on the installation CD, that's why you may need to load.

The 2.6 kernel also has been havily modified and addresses stuff in a different way.

You can still go with the 2.4 kernel as far as the installation is concerned by typing linux at the CD boot prompt.

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« Reply #5 on: December 10, 2004, 10:10:32 am »
Quote from: "radu.c"
Hi,

I saw your problem and went google-ing for your DVD writer model. It seems that it comes in at least three interface flavors: ATAPI (IDE/ATA connector), USB 2.0 and Firewire. Which one is yours?

I assume it's not ATAPI since those get detected right away, so it's probably one of the other two.

You say that SuSE detects it, so that gives us some hope. If you tell me which kind of unit yours is, we may be able to find a solution to this. If it's USB, try loading the usb-storage module if it isn't loaded.

Quote
I have some new info. I've tried Debian net install (Debian installer beta release) and funny is that if I boot with default linux kernel, drive is detected and system goes beyond that point. But if I set linux26, same things happen. Since Pluto is set up to Linux26 by default, the same behaviour is normal.


It's not the kernel that does the actual autodetect. After installation, it's this program called "discover" that does that and loads the appropriate modules, but that program isn't used on the installation CD, that's why you may need to load.

The 2.6 kernel also has been havily modified and addresses stuff in a different way.

You can still go with the 2.4 kernel as far as the installation is concerned by typing linux at the CD boot prompt.



Hi,

thanks for help. I've opened PC and DVD is connected on ide connector.
I must admit that haven't tried Suse 9.2 yet, just feel confident that it will do it properly.

But for Sarge: I take netinstall debina image and if I boot with "kernel" that DVD is detected ok, if I boot with "linux26" than it's not detected.

This situation bothers me why ?

Regards,

Rob.

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« Reply #6 on: December 10, 2004, 12:38:07 pm »
Hi,

more info on my problems. If I boot with "linux" then ide-detect is started among others and it detects DVD ok.

If I boot with linux26, then ide-generic is started and it doesn't detect DVD right.

Don't know why this happens, it's funny that new hardware is supported under 2.4 kernel and not under 2.6

Hope this will help to someone (me also) ...

Regards,

Rob.

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« Reply #7 on: December 10, 2004, 12:42:35 pm »
Quote from: "rr"

Hi,

thanks for help. I've opened PC and DVD is connected on ide connector.
I must admit that haven't tried Suse 9.2 yet, just feel confident that it will do it properly.

But for Sarge: I take netinstall debina image and if I boot with "kernel" that DVD is detected ok, if I boot with "linux26" than it's not detected.

This situation bothers me why ?

Regards,

Rob.


That's odd... I've never seen an ATAPI drive not being detected before. Could be a kernel bug, but I can't say for sure.

Currently you won't lose much by using the 2.4 kernel, but there is a device that drives serial ports over the network which requires a kernel module that was tested to work only under 2.6. That's the only drawback I see for now.

Since it's ATAPI, if the disk doesn't appear in dmesg as being detected, it's probably a kernel thing. I see the Linux kernel people did some changes regarding ATAPI in the 2.6.9 kernel, but I don't know if that helps.

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« Reply #8 on: December 10, 2004, 12:46:06 pm »
Quote from: "rr"

Hi,

thanks for help. I've opened PC and DVD is connected on ide connector.
I must admit that haven't tried Suse 9.2 yet, just feel confident that it will do it properly.

But for Sarge: I take netinstall debina image and if I boot with "kernel" that DVD is detected ok, if I boot with "linux26" than it's not detected.

This situation bothers me why ?

Regards,

Rob.


That's odd... I've never seen an ATAPI drive not being detected before. Could be a kernel bug, but I can't say for sure.

Currently you won't lose mostly anything by using the 2.4 kernel, but there is a device that drives serial ports over the network which requires a kernel module that was tested to work only under 2.6. That's the only drawback I see for now.

Since it's ATAPI, if the disk doesn't appear in dmesg as being detected, it's probably a kernel thing. I see the Linux kernel people did some changes regarding ATAPI in the 2.6.9 kernel, but I don't know if that helps.

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« Reply #9 on: December 10, 2004, 04:47:34 pm »
I did some brief research on the problem and found this in the 2.6.10-rc1 kernel Changelog:

Quote

   fixes INQUIRY command handling for ATAPI.


INQUIRY seems to be the same thing as IDENTIFY DRIVE (I'm not too familiar with the ATAPI low level interface, so I may be wrong) as described in a "ATAPI overview" page on the Net. If I'm right, this should explain your experience with the 2.6 kernel but not with 2.4.

... No, wait. I found that an inquiry is actually the process of getting answers from the drive, not just the IDENTIFY DRIVE command. At least that's what I get from this link: http://publibn.boulder.ibm.com/doc_link/en_US/a_doc_lib/libs/ktechrf2/IDEIOINQU.htm

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« Reply #10 on: February 11, 2005, 09:10:59 pm »
I just got hold of the machine with Serial ATA ports. The hard disk is Serial ATA, the CD unit is Paralel ATA. With the default BIOS settings, the Debian installer CD doesn't detect it when using the 2.6 kernel.

Setting in the BIOS to use "Legacy mode", selecting support for "P-ATA only" and setting "Keep S-ATA" to "Yes" (with whatever mapping of the Serial ATA ports), the hard disk got mapped to the 3rd Paralel ATA port.

With this setting, installation worked just fine, with the hard drive being seen as a SCSI device (/dev/sda).

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« Reply #11 on: March 09, 2005, 12:14:06 am »
Quote from: "radu.c"
I just got hold of the machine with Serial ATA ports. The hard disk is Serial ATA, the CD unit is Paralel ATA. With the default BIOS settings, the Debian installer CD doesn't detect it when using the 2.6 kernel.

Setting in the BIOS to use "Legacy mode", selecting support for "P-ATA only" and setting "Keep S-ATA" to "Yes" (with whatever mapping of the Serial ATA ports), the hard disk got mapped to the 3rd Paralel ATA port.

With this setting, installation worked just fine, with the hard drive being seen as a SCSI device (/dev/sda).


Hi,

after some time I'm trying to install Pluto on another machine - and guess what - problems repeat. This time I'm on Asus p4p800-e and Nec dvdrw 2500a. Same problem: Drive is recognized in bios as atapi cdrom. selecting kernel 2.6 hangs at cd detection, kernel 2.4 detects it OK. I've tried your settings, but nogo (although I couldn't find "Keep S-ATA" to "Yes" setting - cause it isn't there).

I will again give some prayers to Suse, where everything worked, but on Debian I'm stuck again. At first time I think I went with 2.4 kernel, but this time I guess it would pay off to try 2.6 kernel.

Any hint what to do ?

Regards,

Rob.

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« Reply #12 on: March 09, 2005, 02:08:32 am »
Hi,

I've disabled apic and acpi and maybe some other setting and now it works. But I have some other problem (had to remove Digifire card cause Sarge kept get crashed on boot sequence (complaining it can't find proper module for this card). I had also mess, until I added noapic to kernel line.

Now have other problems with Pluto installation - see other thread...

Regards,

Rob.

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« Reply #13 on: June 16, 2005, 02:17:37 pm »
Quote from: "tinia"
Hi,

I've disabled apic and acpi and maybe some other setting and now it works. But I have some other problem (had to remove Digifire card cause Sarge kept get crashed on boot sequence (complaining it can't find proper module for this card). I had also mess, until I added noapic to kernel line.

Now have other problems with Pluto installation - see other thread...

Regards,

Rob.


Hi,

I solved my problems some time ago (although don't remember what was cause  :D ), so I guess this thread is concluded...

Regards,

Rob.