I wanted to reisntall Debian from scratch on my Efika unfortunately the installer fails downloading some installation components (cdebconf-udeb). I tried 4 or 5 times and i get stuck at this stage.

I used the installer provided on efika.info several times in the past without any issues, what's wrong now ?

I have exactly the same issue. It's a relief to see another person having the same problem - I was wondering if my EFIKA's ethernet interface was faulty, but I don't think it is now (the board has only been with me for 1 day), or I was being a total n00b.

My deductions so far are:

- It's not the mirror - I've tried about 20 from the UK and US and all have exactly the same issue.

- It's always the same file - cdebconf-udeb that fails initially. Once that file fails it won't download anything else if you try to continue either.

- It's not a cable or switch problem. The switch I am using has 6 other computers on it hooked to a router. All have flawless internet access. I used a cable I *know* works from my Amiga 4000 and it makes no difference.

What next?

I'm going to try Luther's 'di-efika' installer. It's 2x the size of the one on efika.info, which makes me thing maybe the one on efika.info is screwed up? We'll see.

EDIT: If you have used it in the past then it might be an update efika.info have posted recently?

UPDATE: I just booted Luther's DI-EFIKA installer on mine. It still fails in exactly the same place tho :( :( Have DEBIAN changed something recently in the etch-ppc distro installer files?

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MacMiga
http://www.lincsamiga.org.uk

i tried the other installer from sven too, same problem :-(

Next to try is seeing if using the unstable release changes anything. I doubt it will as I suspect the installer is unchanged but you never know...

UPDATE: Didn't work either...

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MacMiga
http://www.lincsamiga.org.uk

thanks for trying MacMiga :)

Sven ? help !!! ;-)

Yeh, I'm a bit bummed out as I only got my EFIKA yesterday and was looking forward to having it installed and working for the 5th LINCS AMIGA GROUP meeting a week today.

I suppose at least I know it works ok having shipped it all the way from Texas :)

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MacMiga
http://www.lincsamiga.org.uk

Could you post the full log of the error somewhere ? Also, you should try booting in expert mode, and chosing stable/etch as installation distribution.

For info, testing/unstable installers will not work as the debian 2.6.21 kernels don't yet have efika support, since the patches don't apply cleanly.

Friendly,

Sven Luther

How do I do this? I can't drop to a console using Ctrl-F2 at that stage of the install so it's a bit hard.

I'll gladly supply you with the information you need if you tell me how to get to it though :)

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MacMiga
http://www.lincsamiga.org.uk

take a digicam pic of the screen and provide it ? If the network is already up, then you can go abck and to the save logs trick and get them per http.

Friendly,

Sven Luther

OK I took snaps of the screen at point of failure.




I have the logs here:

http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson/syslog.txt
http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson/hardware-summary.txt

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MacMiga
http://www.lincsamiga.org.uk

thanks for providing it Mark, i hope Sven will be able to help us with it. An Efika witout an OS is no fun.

It's no problem, I like to do anything I can to help :o)

That's a damn neat trick being able to pop your logs up on a micro httpd to read them on another computer :)

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MacMiga
http://www.lincsamiga.org.uk

It seems the problem is down to Debian; they've changed a libc dependency which means the current installer no longer works (it's downloading installer components, which rely on the stuff compiled into the installer.. hence the trouble).

bplan are working on a fixed version of what they have so you can all carry on as usual sometime next week.

Genesi are working on a new kernel version for Efika which will be here on PD, and a latest-technology Debian Installer to go with it. For those of you who care less about it working and want to run with the bleeding edge drivers and installation process. That'll probably happen at around the same time.

It's a shame it's so difficult to keep track of these things..

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Matt Sealey

ok thanks for the information Matt, we'll be patient and look forward the update.

Hmmm... that's kinda annoying, but it's also fairly typical of Linux maintainers. They seem to be really bad at maintaining backwards compatibility in stuff.

Thanks for the heads-up Matt, and I hope it's a relatively easy fix. I'd really like to get this baby running by Saturday.

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MacMiga
http://www.lincsamiga.org.uk