Sargeant Penguin — installing "Sarge" on "the Penguin"

A chronicle of installing the testing release of Debian GNU/Linux on a carry-around Linux box.

What is "the Penguin"?

"The Penguin" is a play / experimental box built specifically to carry between the HLUG weekly Linux workshop and home. It is:

Case – Soyo ???
MoBo – ???
- Chipset – ???
CPU – 450 PII
RAM – 192 MB
HD
- – 40 GB Maxtor
x –
x –
Sound – no
Floppy – yes

With the recent addition of the 40G drive, I decided to do some experimenting with a variety of distros. First up is Debian Sarge (testing).

Installation

The first attempt took place in early April (2004), from a disk made by John Lightsey. Miserable failure, 5 times over.

The second attempt was in mid-April, and had to be aborted due to HAL-PC closing for the night.

The third attempt worked. Here are the resulting issues:

It turns out that the GRUB menu.lst DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST points to /dev/hdc for root. And the drive with root is /dev/hdb... How this happened is anyone's guess, maybe we have found a bug in the new Debian installer. In any case the fix comes in two parts: temporary and permanent.

Temporary Solution

The temporary fix, which lasts only for the current boot, is to edit the offending line during boot:
(Be quick, the default time out is 5 seconds).


    Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.25-1-586tsc
    Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.25-1-586tsc (recovery mode)

Highlight the kernel you wish to boot & hit "e", (in our case the first line.)


    root            (hd0,0)
    kernel          /vmlinuz-2.4.25-1-586tsc root=/dev/hdc6 ro    
    initrd          /initrd.img-2.4.25-1-586tsc
    savedefault
    boot

Notice the 2nd line says root=/dev/hdc6 not hdb6, the way it should.
So highlight that line & hit "e" again:


    kernel          /vmlinuz-2.4.25-1-586tsc root=/dev/hdc6 ro

Edit the line to read root=/dev/hdb6 & hit "Enter", then hit "b" to boot

Permanent Solution

The permanent solution is to edit the GRUB menu.lst DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST to make the change permanent.

In a [C|K]onsole, cd to /boot/grub
Make a back up of menu.lst
Open menu.lst in your favorite editor
Go to the end of the file
Make the changes
Don't forget to fix (recovery mode) also
Check & save your work

No Internet connection

There is no 'net connection after boot. The reason, of course, is that dhcp is not running automatically.

Work Around

Run dhclient
Verify with ipconfig

Notes

In Debian, Tab completion works at the first 3 letters of each of the above:

dhc Tab ⇒ dhclient
ipc Tab ⇒ ipconfig

In Debian, dhcp is run with dhclient, not pump or dhcpdc.

Real Fix

Add dhclient to the initialization scripts. {To Do}

Screen / Desktop Resolution too small

Konsoles won't close

In KDE trying to close a Terminal Session (Konsole), either a single shell or the whole window, results in a dead window.

For the moment, Don't Do That.
Use ps aux & kill for temporary relief
Try to avoid Ctrl–Alt–BackSpace (restart X).

This may be a Sarge or KDE bug.

Ask ...

`fdisk -l` doesn't work

What could be clearer? When I type fdisk -l & hit Enter, there is no output, all I get is a new bash prompt.

A cumbersome, & potentially dangerous, work around is to do fdisk /dev/hd_ on each device.

This may be a Sarge bug.

Ask ...

Pointer ("mouse") Problems

I say "Pointer" because when I have to use a pointing device, I prefer a trackball. I also prefer to put it under my left hand — the right hand is for the number pad & writing. I have a Brand New Ambidexterous 5 Buttons & Wheel Trackball. Mostly, I love it but:

The default set up is for the right hand.

<rant>
I say "for the right hand", because I refuse to imply that everyone should do everything with the dominant hand. IMNotAtAllHO, there are many things better done with the Other (non-dominant) hand. Again, IMNAAHO, pointing, whether w/ trackball or rat, is one of those things.
</rant>

The wheel doesn't work.
The extra buttons don't work.
When travelling left, the cursor sometimes stalls before reaching the edge of the desktop.
gpm (tty "mouse" service) is not running.

Changing "Button Mapping"

The sequence is: "Start" (K & gear icon in the lower left corner) – Settings – Control Center –
After you have used the Control Center once, it will appear at the top of your "Start" menu, and you can skip "Settings".
– Peripherals – Mouse – General (Tab) – Button Mapping (box) – Left Handed (radio button)

apt-get Output ("1st Report")

After reboot:

apt-get Output ("2nd Report")
kword itself ok
but there is a separate problem w/ the frontend

-- RickArchibald - 26 Apr 2004

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