Debian-Installer errata

Errata for lenny release RC1

This is a list of known problems in the lenny RC1 release of Debian Installer. If you do not see your problem listed here, please send us an installation report describing the problem.

Outdated Installation Guide on installation media
The copy of the Installation Guide that's included on installation media is outdated. Users are suggested to use the updated copy on the website.
Multiarch CD boots the AMD64 installer directly
The multiarch CD doesn't show the boot menu but rather boots directly into the AMD64 installer (Bug #505243).
Corrupted display of messages in Dzongkha installs
When the password chosen for root and its confirmations do not match, the display of screens that follow is garbled, during installs in Dzongkha language (broken display of italic font).
Fallback languages not used as planned
For some languages (namely Northern Sami and Wolof), a fallback language different from English should be used. However, only English is used as fallback for these language. Users choosing these languages, particularly Northern Sami will be presented with many screens in English.
Marvell disk controllers not supported in CD-ROM media
Due to a missing pata-modules package on i386 and amd64 media, peripherals driven by Marvell disk controllers are not detected. As a workaround, you can manually download the udeb package for i386 or amd64, put it on a removable medium and manually install it with 'udpkg -i' from the second console. Then run 'depmod -a ; modprobe pata_marvell'.
Disk devices may change on reboot
On systems with multiple disk controllers, the kernel/udev may assign a different device node on reboot of the system than was used during installation due to difference in load order of drivers.
This can lead to failure to boot the system. In most cases this can be corrected by changing the bootloader configuration and /etc/fstab, possibly using the rescue mode of the installer.
Note however that this problem may occur again on subsequent boots.
Reboot problems when installing from a USB stick
The former problem may also happen when installing from a USB stick. Temporarily keeping the USB stick in place will allow you to boot the installed system and correct the bootloader configuration file. See #506263 for details about such workaround.
Buggy routers may cause network problems
If you experience network problems during the installation, this may be caused by a router somewhere between you and the Debian mirror that doesn't correctly handle window scaling. See #401435 and this kerneltrap article for details.
You can work around this issue by disabling TCP window scaling. Activate a shell and enter the following command:
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_window_scaling
For the installed system you should probably not completely disable TCP window scaling. The following command will set ranges for reading and writing that should work with almost any router:
echo 4096 65536 65536 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_rmem
echo 4096 65536 65536 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_wmem
i386: no installation from floppy disk
Due to an increase in the size of the 2.6.24 kernel, we are unable to provide installation images for installs from floppy disk. We expect to be able to support floppy installs again when the installer switches to the next kernel version.
powerpc: various issues
The PowerPC port has several issues in this release:
  • installation from floppy on OldWorld PowerMac is broken because no device node is created for the swim3 module and as miboot is not included
  • the snd-powermac module is no longer loaded by default as it will lock up some systems; you will need to add it to /etc/modules manually
sparc: fails to recognize ESP/FAS SCSI controller
Installer images are missing the sun_esp kernel module which is needed to support CD and disc drives connected to an ESP or FAS controller.
s390: unsupported features
  • support for the DASD DIAG discipline is currently not available
  • support for LCS network interfaces is no longer available