Re: Booting Debian/testing fails

On Sun, Feb 04, 2007 at 05:51:34PM +0000, Nick Boyce wrote:
Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
On Fri, Feb 02, 2007 at 11:13:50AM -0500, Terrence Brannon wrote:
He doesn't want *documentation* - he just wants the software to *work*
... and why shouldn't he want that ?

Failure to install the boot-loader, while actually reporting "success"
(or failing to report "failure") is unforgivable.

Round about now I expect some fellow list members are relegating me to
the newbie camp, and maybe starting to type a reply telling me to RTFM,
or that the answer lies in the source Luke. I'll just mention that I've
been working with computers a loooong time, cutting my teeth on
mainframes; I've worked with various Un*xen (commercial, Linux and *BSD)
and I consider that I do know what I'm doing - and 99 times out of 100
when I break my Linux I _can_ fix it myself. HOWEVER: every time I find
some crazy breakage, I start getting the most uneasy feeling about the
*quality* of what I'm grappling with ... it's as if the author of
whatever broke (lovely person that they are, slaving to write this stuff
for me in their spare time) just didn't take enough care when they
wrote it.


Actually, *Ubuntu would be perfect for me (and probably the OP), except
that actually I _like_ tinkering .. it's a hobby I enjoy (but only a
bit), and I love Debian, so I stay ... a bit like staying with a lover
you know you should leave. I avoid most of the problems by Keeping My
System Simple. I run Sarge with KDE, and would love my USB flashdrives
to automount and pop up on the desktop like Knoppix/Ubuntu, but I
haven't been able to dedicate sufficient tinkering time to making it
work yet, and apparently it's all different at Etch so I wonder what's
the point of learning ... so I just manually mount - it's not too onerous.

See my response a few threads back (Sunday, 5am) to the question "Debian
switches driver letters preventing boot" for an example of a problem I
think Linux just shouldn't have ... it's lunatic, and implies the system
design just hasn't been thought out properly. Nobody should have to
unpack their initrd, alter it, and pack it back up again just because
they have an add-on PCI IDE controller.

[OT: I haven't actually seen proper software quality since they retired
my mainframes ... no brand of Un*x seems to have the right robustness ..
and Win32 is obviously a joke ... but that a topic for another (drunken)
conversation in a bar.]

... Clearly this guy is upset, frustrated, but to
block out the list that's supposed to be trying to help is
disturbing.

Well maybe he's one of those who don't like getting the "RTFM / Use The
Source" replies, or gets upset when flamed (and replies on this list and
many others can all too often seem like flames - especially to those
unversed in Netiquette for at least a decade ... "it's usually nothing
personal") ... or maybe he just hasn't got the time to participate in an
endless mailing list dialogue about a small topic (most of us who've
been here a while accept this as the price of asking for and receiving
help from volunteers).


Hi Nick

I had the no-bootloader problem when I installed Etch. I _had_ to use
Etch since Sarge wouldn't work on my new hardware. Actually, the Sarge
installer never worked on my old hardware. On that, I had to install
Woody base only, then aptitude, then upgrade from there.

I reported the bootloader problem in the installation report and figure
it will get fixed before release. I agree that such a problem would be
difficult to forgive in a stable release.

I too keep my boxes simple. Actually, I keep two boxes so I have access
to the docs, email, and lynx if something happens to the other box. It
also makes for good backups. To me, one of the great things about
Debian (and probably Linux, and probably *N*X) is that if one util
doesn't work the way you want, there are others or you can write your
own. One of the problematic ones (that it probably shares with most
other OSs) is that if something fundamental changes with a kernel
change, one can be in Rocks and Shoals without warning (e.g. your
drive-name swap). One can't just write a script to fix that, and I
don't do C.

I've never played with a mainframe. I wonder if anyone has ported their
OSs to AMD64? Ubuntu relies on Gnome. Are gnome apps stable enough for
you yet? I find that they often try to push their own envelope so
they're not 100% reliable.

Doug.



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