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

["Steffen Möller"]

Hi Steven,

have many thanks for your effort. This reads real nice. While reading through it I thought fairly often "hm, ok, but what to do now?". Probably it is a bit like storing the info for google to help subsequent efforts. My hunch is, that if we used the Debian installer, the effort would not necessarily have become easier for you.

[...]

> *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.

I was not aware of those demands. A test on the memory would probably complicate the script too much. I'll add a respective warning to "--help", is that fine?

> *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?

This sounds like a very good idea. Objections, anyone?

> *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?)

Hm. This should possibly be another flag. Luca (IIRC) objected adding less critical packages (also like apt-utils) to keep the install truly minimal. For us "SD-Installers" this is less of an issue, but when aiming at the flash, you don't want any bloat.

> *Cleanup stage: cdebootstrap-helper-rc.d wasn't installed so not purged.

Could you please formulate that as a patch to install.sh?

> *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.

Again, please kindly provide a patch.

> *To be consistent, action_tasks should notifiy when it's job is finished
> (cfr. 'I: microSD card partitions mounted').

This sounds right. I'll add those.

> *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, this sounds like an SD issue. I am slightly embarrased to say that, but I have admittedly refrained from buying the new cheap fat ones in favour of something smaller (2GB or 512MB) and even cheaper ones.

I could imagine the umount error to be somehow related to this. 

> 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...

Well, congratulations. I had my last success when my OpenMoko still worked on a ferry between Puttgarden and Rodby and my regular phone did not find a provider. So was even making a PHONE CALL on my device that I only took with me to raise the anonymous cell_hunter stats.

> 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!

I would say you have just contributed to it. So, thank you, and I hope the community helps you keeping up your good mood for long.

Best regards,

Steffen