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Beta release of Etch install images

Posted: 10 Jan 2008, 16:37
by tor
Release notes for etch and bubba-etch install images.
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There are now two images available for testing. Both images will reformat your harddrive, consider yourself warned.

Bubba-etch image
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The first one is almost the same as the regular reinstall image but based on Debian Etch.

The big differences from the old one besides the Etch part is that this one does partition the harddrive with one system and one data partition.

Further more we are trying out a new repository setup that at least for now have all sources enabled. Which means that you no longer should have to fiddle with apt sources for install and upgrade of packages from the debian repos. To achieve this we have however disabled all debconf questions which results in that all newly installed packages will have default settings.

Known issues at this point.

Upload in the filemanager does not work.
Disk size and usage is reported wrong in the web-ui.

Further more we have not had any time to test mailhandling thoroughly.

This image can be found here: http://update.excito.net/install/testing/bubba-etch

The pure Etch install image
------------------------------
The other image is a pure minimal Debian Etch install image. It contains only the bare essentials to boot the system and a running ssh-server.

This install creates three partitions on the disk. One root partition with the OS. One unformatted partition and last on the disk a 1GB swap file. The size of the root partition is adjustable by adding a file on the USB install medium called bubba.cfg

Add a line something like this:

Code: Select all

ROOT_SIZE=10
Where the value is the size of the root partition in GBs.

The system is further more configured with a static IP address of 192.168.0.50 and has a root account with the normal password of excito

This image can be found here: http://update.excito.net/install/testing/etchonly

If you find any bugs etc in any of the images. Please add your comment here. Or email support@excito.com. We will look into the possibilities on setting up a bughandling system, most likely flyspray, later if needed.

[edit] rearanged paragraph.

Posted: 10 Jan 2008, 17:02
by osa
Great news!

Downloading :D

Posted: 11 Jan 2008, 02:12
by JohanJ
From a total NOOB ?
What is this ? :oops:

Posted: 11 Jan 2008, 03:53
by tor
Hi JohanJ,

This is a beta, test, release of two reinstall images. Images that you can use to completely reinstall your Bubba. You can read some about it in the users manual chapter 15 and the paragraph Installing/reinstalling software on the disk

The reason for the two images is that we provide both a install image with the "normal" Bubba functionality and also a clean Linux image. That only contains a minimal Debian installation for people who want to custimize their units for other things. You can read more about Debian here http://www.us.debian.org/ and Linux here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

/Tor

Posted: 11 Jan 2008, 10:22
by vecka53
Just a question.... There was a package called linux-modules that I used with sarge to get my usb-to-serial-cable working. Can I use the same package as you released for sarge or is it included in the etch release?

/Markus

Posted: 12 Jan 2008, 06:53
by msx
speaking about the kernel, is it possible to have the configuration you use to create the images? and maybe some hints on how to recompile it (if it is possible)

Posted: 12 Jan 2008, 08:37
by John W
Thanks Excito!
You've done a great job Tor & co!
I've just installed the "light" version of Etch, and everything works lika a charm!
I just had a smaller problem with Apache2 which couldn't figure out the Domain Name. I solved the problem by adding this line to apache2.conf:
ServerName "overdrive.mine.nu"

Thanks again! :D

Posted: 13 Jan 2008, 12:49
by tor
Hi,

Vecka53, the linux-modules package works for the etch installation as well. We have not yet had time to fully populate our repo for etch and thats why not all packages are available.

msx, sure you can recompile your linux kernel. We provide toolchain, kernel patches and our default config here http://download.excito.net/kernel/ There really should be a description on how to do this. The only reason we dont provide it is that if you install a non functional kernel image your Bubba will not boot. And fix that is somewhat problematic. If you are daring enough you can always start with bjorns excellent Compiling Kernel and/or modules using Crosstool to get started.

John W, thx for your feedback :)

/Tor

Posted: 15 Jan 2008, 02:50
by Ubi
Will upgrading from the beta to the final release also be requiring a format?

Ubi

Posted: 15 Jan 2008, 14:22
by andol
Antag att man vill köra sin Bubba som ren Debian-server, har man då något nytta av följande repository?

deb http://update.excito.net/ etchoverlay main

Posted: 15 Jan 2008, 17:09
by tor
Hi,

Ubi, our ambition is to provide an upgrade image if possible. It will still delete all OS files. But keep data in home, storage and web.

Another way that most likely also will work is to edit the sources.list, remove the bubba package, and then do a dist-upgrade to upgrade the system to etch. Then reinstall the, new, bubba package. The drawback on this is that you wont get the new partitioning and will end up with a system that differs from the "full" bubba-etch system and thus might not work 100%.

andol, the etchoverlay repo contains packges specific to bubba hw and thus not in the normal debian repos. For now it only contains the gpioapp that is responsible for handling the front led. But we will add more later, such as the modules package fx. So i would keep it in the source file.

/Tor

Posted: 16 Jan 2008, 00:47
by Eek
I suspect you will be posting the new bubba partitioning?
So we could set it up manually afterwards?

Posted: 16 Jan 2008, 02:14
by tor
Hi,

Regarding partitioning. It will be a quite simple setup, most likely something like:

hda1 - User data
hda2 - OS
hda3 - Swap

/Tor

Posted: 29 Feb 2008, 02:20
by tor
Regarding partitioning,

It will be,

hda1 - OS (Default 10GB)
hda2 - User Data
hda3 - Swap (Default 1GB)

And nothing else.

/Tor

Posted: 31 Mar 2008, 08:59
by Tompa
Hi,

If I reinstall the etch-image a second time, is the installer "smart" enough to see that the partitioning is already done and leave my /dev/hda2 be?

Or is it a mandatory format?