Debian-Installer errata

Errata for lenny release beta2

This is a list of known problems in the lenny Beta2 release of Debian Installer. If you do not see your problem listed here, please send us an installation report describing the problem.

Disk devices may change on reboot
On systems with multiple disk controllers, the kernel/udev may assign a different device node on reboot of the system than was used during installation due to difference in load order of drivers.
This can lead to failure to boot the system. In most cases this can be corrected by changing the bootloader configuration and /etc/fstab, possibly using the rescue mode of the installer.
Note however that this problem may occur again on subsequent boots.
uninitialized value warnings from Perl during installation
As a result of a recent switch to Perl 5.10, the installation logs will show some Perl warnings. As far as we know these are harmless and can be ignored. A solution for this issue (#480533) is being worked on.
aptitude errors during installs in Russian
This issue will result in a failed installation. We have only seen reports for Russian, but some other languages may be affected too. The issue (#473559) is expected to be fixed shortly after the release for daily and weekly built installer and CD/DVD images.
In case you do hit this issue, the installation can be completed by using the following workaround:
  • switch to a debug console on VT2
  • run the command:
    rm /target/usr/share/locale/<lang>/LC_MESSAGES/*apt*
    (replace <lang> by your language code, e.g. ru)
  • switch back to the installer menu on VT1
  • continue the installation by retrying the selected installation step
Buggy routers may cause network problems
If you experience network problems during the installation, this may be caused by a router somewhere between you and the Debian mirror that doesn't correctly handle window scaling. See #401435 and this kerneltrap article for details.
You can work around this issue by disabling TCP window scaling. Activate a shell and enter the following command:
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_window_scaling
For the installed system you should probably not completely disable TCP window scaling. The following command will set ranges for reading and writing that should work with almost any router:
echo 4096 65536 65536 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_rmem
echo 4096 65536 65536 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_wmem
General issues after reboot because of UTF-8 default
The installed system is now set to UTF-8 by default. However, not all applications properly support UTF-8 yet, which may result in minor or major problems when using them.
Please check if such problems have been reported yet and, if not, file a bug report against the relevant package (not the installer).
Graphical installer
The graphical installer still has some known issues (see also the Installation Guide):
  • some non-US keymaps are not fully supported (deadkeys and combining characters do not work)
  • keys for accented or special characters may not work correctly; this is a regression compared to previous releases which will hopefully be fixed again soon (#482335)
  • touchpads should work, but support may not be optimal; if you experience problems, you should use an external mouse instead
  • should work on almost all PowerPC systems that have an ATI graphics card, but is unlikely to work on other PowerPC systems
i386: no installation from floppy disk
Due to an increase in the size of the 2.6.24 kernel, we are unable to provide installation images for installs from floppy disk. We expect to be able to support floppy installs again when the installer switches to the next kernel version.
i386/amd64: GRUB installation on cpqarray RAID volumes may fail
Affected are systems that have /dev/ida/cXdX devices. This issue (#466600) is expected to be fixed soon after the release for daily and weekly built installer and CD/DVD images when a fixed version of GRUB reaches testing.
i386/amd64: Reboot may fail with loop-aes encrypted root file system
This can be due to a problem in GRUB which results in an incorrect root= parameter being set in /etc/grub/menu.lst. See #486360 for details and workaround.
arm: NSLU2 image won't start
The NSLU2 installer images from debian.org will not boot. However, this problem is not present in the unofficial images from slug-firmware.net. These images also include the proprietary microcode needed for Ethernet to work, so please use the images from slug-firmware.net.
powerpc: various issues
The PowerPC port has several issues in this release:
  • installation from floppy on OldWorld PowerMac is broken because no device node is created for the swim3 module and as miboot is not included
  • the snd-powermac module is no longer loaded by default as it will lock up some systems; you will need to add it to /etc/modules manually
sparc: fails to recognize ESP/FAS SCSI controller
Installer images are missing the sun_esp kernel module which is needed to support CD and disc drives connected to an ESP or FAS controller.
s390: unsupported features
  • support for the DASD DIAG discipline is currently not available
  • support for LCS network interfaces is no longer available