[RULE] slinky fails using up2date RedHat 9 CD-ROMs

[John Reiser]

slinky-v0.3.96 failed to install a completely up2date set of RedHat 9
CD-ROMs: KRUD Version 9 from December 2003 (http://www.tummy.com/krud/).
slinky was http://www.rule-project.org/download/slinky/slinky-v0.3.96.iso .
The initial part of the install_log appears at the end of this message.
The hardware is reliable: was running Win95 OK, passed memtest (32MB RAM).

During the first CD-ROM, the vga console shows a pair of lines for each .rpm:
   Preparing  ##################################################### 100%
   <package>: ##################################################### 100%
But at the end of the first CD-ROM [these 4 lines are not quoted exactly]:
   Error reported while installing kernel-2.4.20-8.i586.rpm.
   umount failed: No such file or directory
   eject failed: No such file or directory
   Please insert the second CD-ROM then type Enter.
and now the CD-ROM is locked closed and cannot be ejected using the button
on its front panel.  A hardware reset is required.  The install has failed;
the machine will not boot from disk.

This install experience shows a number of problems.
1. I asked the install for RedHat version 9, yet the error message
    says version 8 ("kernel-2.4.20-8.i586.rpm").  The kernel on the CD-ROM
    is kernel-2.4.20-24.9; why wasn't it used?  This is confusing.
2. umount and eject belong in busybox for robustness.
3. The install_log shows that 140 packages failed ("Error reported while
    installing <package>"), yet only the message for the kernel [the last
    one in the log] appears on the vga console.
4. The "Error reported while installing <package>" message ought to give
    the specific error in order to enable diagnosis, workaround, and recovery.
5. As a guess, the shell script that is run after unpacking the .rpm
    failed to execute because some program and/or library was missing
    (such as ld-linux.so.2, /lib/libc.so.6, /bin/sh, etc.)

By booting the KRUD CD #1 in rescue mode, and installing several .rpm by
hand (rpm --install --root /mnt/sysimage <package>) [starting with glibc*
and kernel from the CD-ROM], I was able to repair enough things to achieve
boot from disk and multi-user login with IceWM desktop.

Using just the KRUD CD-ROMs, I was able to start over from the beginning
and fresh install a Personal Desktop system in 2 hours using text-mode
install.  The box has 32MB RAM; performance of Gnome desktop was very slow.

Then I repeated the slinky install, and got the same error(s) as the first time.

-----Initial portion of install_log
Mon Jan 3 11:59:05 UTC 2005 Slinky installer starting.
Command line used:
initrd=rootfs.gz ramdisk_size=2048 root=/dev/ramdisk rw BOOT_IMAGE=vmlinuz
Processor info:
processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 5 model : 4 model name : Pentium MMX
Memory info:
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached: Mem: 31080448 3600384 27480064 0 57344 2527232 Swap: 0 0 0 MemTotal: 30352 kB MemFree: 26836 kB
User selected version 9.
User selected stage2 location: cdrom.
User selected cdrom install type.
CD probe=hdc
CDROM_DEV=/dev/hdc
Filesystem type selected = ext3
file system options = -j -q -m 3
Available devices = hda
PART_DEV= /dev/hda
INSTALL_DEV= /dev/hda
partition_tool=fdisk
SWAP_DEV=/dev/hda1
Available partitions = hda5

############# FDISK OUTPUT ###############

Disk /dev/hda: 128 heads, 63 sectors, 620 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 bytes

    Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1             1        82    330592+  82  Linux swap
/dev/hda4            83       620   2169216    5  Extended
/dev/hda5   *        83       620   2169184+  83  Linux

########### END FDISK OUTPUT #############

ROOT_PART_SELECTED=hda5
ROOT_DEV=/dev/hda5
rpm is configured to install the following locales:
en:fr:de:it:es
Network packages selected for install.
Dialup packages selected for install.
DHCP packages selected for install.
web tools packages selected for install.
Openssh  packages selected for install.
TinyX packages selected for install.
AbiWord packages selected for install.
Mozilla packages selected for install.
OpenOffice packages selected for install.
Printing packages selected for install.
Dateconfig packages selected for install.
Error reported while installing glibc-common-2.3.2-11.9.i386.rpm.
Error reported while installing redhat-logos-1.1.12-1.noarch.rpm.
Error reported while installing glibc-2.3.2-11.9.i386.rpm.
  ...  <Error from 137 packages omitted>
Error reported while installing kernel-2.4.20-8.i586.rpm.
-----


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