[pkg-fso-maint] An eventful install.sh

[Steven De Herdt]

Hello,

I have succeeded in installing Debian testing on my gta02 using install.sh,
with some trial and error mainly because I adapted the script so that it
used my approx cache.  Some remarks:
*Modularity of the script is very nice, used it a lot...
*Although installing testing with this script is surely Not Supported, I did
it anyway.  Maybe the repositories don't mix quite nicely, but I had to do
some stuff manually anyway.  And it worked, at least initially (cfr. infra).
*The script hung on the second five-seconds-to-loss-of-data (format stage).
I wouldn't know why.  When I later went through the install again it didn't
happen.
*mount complained: 'you must specify the filesystem type'.  I think I
removed '-t auto' from the mount command and it worked.  But I readded it
later when mount complained again.
*During cdebootstrap I got "O: wget: server returned error: HTTP/1.1 500
Internal Server Error", which may be my fault (trying to use approx).  I
switched to plain debootstrap (failed, installed perl, retried.  Did I
already say that the modularity is really nice?): 1.0.15 wasn't on the
mirror, 1.0.20 (testing's) didn't have the 'testing' target, so I settled on
sid's 1.0.22.
*debootstrap crashed once for lack of memory, a warning about the amount
needed might have been handy.  Restarted after killing some processes
(python!), yet profiting from my approx-setup.
*Speaking of which, debootstrap was looking for the proxy on an unfamiliar
ip address, so I copied /etc/hosts to the chroot.  Should that be done in
the script?
*For unknown reason, the debootstrap install failed without spewing errors
during package extraction.  Just retrying worked.
(*Archive keys failed to install, packages couldn't be authenticated, copied
the /etc/hosts, retried.  There.)
*Due to no locale being installed, perl complained loudly and the apt output
was rather hard to read.  Maybe a good idea to install some early in the
process?  (Also openpty() fails and Dialog & Readline are reported missing -
not quite serious I suppose?)
*Cleanup stage: cdebootstrap-helper-rc.d wasn't installed so not purged.
*The cleanup stage claims that directory /mnt/debian is no longer available,
but it was. Maybe a formulation like 'The partition to which Debian was
installed is no longer mounted.  Remake $INST_DIR if necessary and add ...
to fstab so that ...' would be clearer.
*To be consistent, action_tasks should notifiy when it's job is finished
(cfr. 'I: microSD card partitions mounted').
*And finally, the real bugger that I couldn't solve (and quite possibly has
nothing to do with Debian): strange things going on with the new partition.
During and after the install I got a lot of 'Stale NFS file handle' errors,
refusals to unmount and lots of repairing work for fsck.  The installation
worked on first boot, but subsequently didn't show a GUI (ssh still worked)
because relevant files were lost+found.  I could restore some, but
apparently not enough for the GUI to work again.

So now my Debian install is slightly FUBARed, but not enough to keep me from
using gammu through chroot.  And finally get some photos from another cell
phone on mine, yay!  Now someone is bound to tell me how I could have done
that in SHR...

Now don't read this as a rant, although it required some determination on my
part, it was fun getting the universal OS on my smallest computer yet.  (It
felt so familiar.  How to put it, apt-get sweet apt-get?)  I must thank you
for your work in making this possible.  Thank you!

Greetings,

Steven.
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