• Debian Sid installation successful on rx6600

    From Frank Scheiner@21:1/5 to All on Sat Nov 7 16:20:01 2020
    Hi all,

    just a quick success report:

    Yesterday I did a Debian installation on a rx6600 using the latest
    installation image available ATM ([1]) and that went through w/o any
    real problems using only the defaults in "normal" installation mode.

    Congratulations, Adrian! :-)

    [1]: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2020-10-13/debian-10.0.0-ia64-NETINST-1.iso

    I was using the system console provided by the built-in iLO MP via
    telnet for installation and I only experienced two issues:

    1. The installation UI messages are sometimes "overwritten" by
    "unaligned access" messages, but a new UI screen or "window" makes them disappear. Only at the last step where a user is asked for confirmation
    to finish the installation, this understandingly can't happen until a
    user makes a specific decision. I assume changing to another `screen`
    window and changing back could also help if the UI messages are
    unreadable because of this.

    2. First login via system console after installation and reboot worked
    w/o a problem, but logging out and back in I didn't get a prompt after
    the MOTD messages. Only after hitting Ctrl+c the prompt appears. This
    was reproducible. No such issue when using SSH, so maybe this is an
    effect of using the iLO MP system console via telnet.

    Both are no problem at all.

    ****

    Just for the record, my rx6600 has the following firmware revisions:
    ```
    FIRMWARE INFORMATION


    *System Firmware A Revision: 4.11 [4842]
    PAL_A: 7.31/1.08
    PAL_B: 1.14
    EFI Spec: 2.00
    EFI Intel Drop: 14.62
    EFI Build: 7.14
    SAL Spec: 3.20
    SAL_A: 2.00
    SAL_B: 4.11
    POSSE: 0.24
    ACPI: 7.00
    SMBIOS: 2.3.2a
    System Firmware B Revision: 4.11 [4842]
    BMC Revision: 5.24
    IPMI: 1.00
    Management Processor Revision: F.02.23
    Updatable EFI Drivers:
    Floating-Point Software Assistance Handler: 00000118
    Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet Driver: 00090404
    SCSI Bus Driver: 00000031
    SCSI Disk Driver: 00000020
    SCSI Tape Driver: 00000030
    Usb Ohci Driver: 00000040
    USB Bus Driver: 00000020
    USB Bot Mass Storage Driver: 00000020
    Generic USB Mass Storage Driver: 00000020

    * Indicates active system firmware image
    ```

    ...has four 9120N Montvales installed with HyperThreading enabled and
    uses the zx2 chipset. The installation went onto a SAS HDD.

    Cheers,
    Frank

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  • From John Paul Adrian Glaubitz@21:1/5 to Frank Scheiner on Sat Nov 7 16:50:02 2020
    Hi!

    On 11/7/20 4:11 PM, Frank Scheiner wrote:
    Yesterday I did a Debian installation on a rx6600 using the latest installation image available ATM ([1]) and that went through w/o any
    real problems using only the defaults in "normal" installation mode.

    Congratulations, Adrian! :-)

    I created fresh images today, maybe you want to try the latest ia64 image
    as well so we know that works, too [1].

    Adrian

    [1] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2020-11-07/debian-10.0.0-ia64-NETINST-1.iso

    --
    .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
    : :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz@debian.org
    `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de
    `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

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  • From Frank Scheiner@21:1/5 to John Paul Adrian Glaubitz on Sat Nov 7 21:00:01 2020
    Hi Adrian,

    On 07.11.20 16:45, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
    Hi!

    On 11/7/20 4:11 PM, Frank Scheiner wrote:
    Yesterday I did a Debian installation on a rx6600 using the latest
    installation image available ATM ([1]) and that went through w/o any
    real problems using only the defaults in "normal" installation mode.

    Congratulations, Adrian! :-)

    I created fresh images today, maybe you want to try the latest ia64 image
    as well so we know that works, too [1].

    [1] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2020-11-07/debian-10.0.0-ia64-NETINST-1.iso

    I tried the one from today on the rx2660 I have at home ATM. The rx6600
    is at a remote location but offline.

    Unfortunately the new image shows a problem during the initial
    `debootstrap` run for "vim-tiny" and "vim-common". Looks like their
    versions were different during creation of the image:

    ```
    Nov 7 19:42:00 debootstrap: Errors were encountered while processing:

    Nov 7 19:42:00 debootstrap: vim-tiny

    Nov 7 19:42:01 debootstrap: dpkg: dependency problems prevent
    configuration of
    vim-tiny:

    Nov 7 19:42:01 debootstrap: vim-tiny depends on vim-common (=
    2:8.2.0716-3); h
    owever:

    Nov 7 19:42:01 debootstrap: Version of vim-common on system is
    2:8.2.1913-1.
    Nov 7 19:42:01 debootstrap:

    Nov 7 19:42:01 debootstrap: dpkg: error processing package vim-tiny (--configur
    e):

    Nov 7 19:42:01 debootstrap: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

    Nov 7 19:42:01 debootstrap: Errors were encountered while processing:

    Nov 7 19:42:01 debootstrap: vim-tiny

    Nov 7 19:42:02 debootstrap: dpkg: dependency problems prevent
    configuration of vim-tiny:

    Nov 7 19:42:02 debootstrap: vim-tiny depends on vim-common (=
    2:8.2.0716-3); h

    however:

    Nov 7 19:42:02 debootstrap: Version of vim-common on system is
    2:8.2.1913-1.
    ```

    As a side info: The installer proposes to load firmware for the built-in
    `tg3` driven NICs of the rx2660. But this can be safely ignored on the
    rx2660, the NICs work w/o loading (newer) firmware. Which is
    interesting, as I seem to remember that on other architectures this is
    not necessarily the case for `tg3` driven NICs.

    Cheers,
    Frank

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  • From John Paul Adrian Glaubitz@21:1/5 to Frank Scheiner on Sun Nov 8 11:50:01 2020
    Hi Frank!

    On 11/7/20 8:57 PM, Frank Scheiner wrote:
    I tried the one from today on the rx2660 I have at home ATM. The rx6600
    is at a remote location but offline.

    Unfortunately the new image shows a problem during the initial
    `debootstrap` run for "vim-tiny" and "vim-common". Looks like their
    versions were different during creation of the image:

    Should be fixed in today's image [1].

    Adrian

    [1] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2020-11-08/debian-10.0.0-ia64-NETINST-1.iso

    --
    .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
    : :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz@debian.org
    `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de
    `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

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  • From John Paul Adrian Glaubitz@21:1/5 to Frank Scheiner on Mon Nov 9 21:10:01 2020
    On 11/9/20 8:51 PM, Frank Scheiner wrote:
    Just tested this one and this time the installation fails after "tasksel": (...)
    Maybe I should try at a later date.

    Yes, after tasksel is the network installation, so you're currently running straight into the mess that's called Perl transition:

    https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2020/11/msg00001.html

    That's something inevitable for Debian Ports until we get a testing release.

    BTW, maybe it's just a feeling, but from my memory these version number "mismatches" seem to happen very often for ia64, but are not so common
    for other ports architectures. Is there something different in the
    package build process on ia64 compared to other architectures that leads
    to (more) broken dependencies?

    Yes, currently quite a number of packages are falling behind for ia64, especially since Ruby upstream dropped ia64 support and so far there hasn't been anyone willing to step up and help me forward-porting ia64 support
    for Ruby 2.7.

    I have started the work and I can share it with anyone.

    Adrian

    --
    .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
    : :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz@debian.org
    `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de
    `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

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  • From Frank Scheiner@21:1/5 to John Paul Adrian Glaubitz on Mon Nov 9 21:00:02 2020
    Hi Adrian,

    On 08.11.20 11:44, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
    Hi Frank!

    On 11/7/20 8:57 PM, Frank Scheiner wrote:
    I tried the one from today on the rx2660 I have at home ATM. The rx6600
    is at a remote location but offline.

    Unfortunately the new image shows a problem during the initial
    `debootstrap` run for "vim-tiny" and "vim-common". Looks like their
    versions were different during creation of the image:

    Should be fixed in today's image [1].

    Adrian

    [1] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2020-11-08/debian-10.0.0-ia64-NETINST-1.iso


    Just tested this one and this time the installation fails after "tasksel":
    ```
    Nov 9 19:32:01 in-target: Reading package lists...

    Nov 9 19:32:01 in-target:

    Nov 9 19:32:01 in-target: Building dependency tree...

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target:

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: Reading state information...

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target:

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: Some packages could not be installed. This
    may mean t
    hat you have

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: requested an impossible situation or if you
    are using
    the unstable

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: distribution that some required packages have
    not yet
    been created

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: or been moved out of Incoming.

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: The following information may help to resolve
    the sit
    uation:

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target:

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: The following packages have unmet
    dependencies:
    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: liblocale-gettext-perl : PreDepends:
    perlapi-5.30.0
    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: libtext-charwidth-perl : Depends:
    perlapi-5.30.0
    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: libtext-iconv-perl : Depends: perlapi-5.30.0

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: E

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: :

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated
    breaks, this may be caused by held packages.

    Nov 9 19:32:02 in-target: tasksel: apt-get failed (100)
    ```

    Maybe I should try at a later date.

    ATM [2] shows all Perl packages with version numbers 5.32.0 but [3] is
    still requiring 5.30.0.

    [2]: http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports/pool-ia64/main/p/perl/

    [3]: http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports/pool-ia64/main/libl/liblocale-gettext-perl/liblocale-gettext-perl_1.07-4_ia64.buildinfo

    BTW, maybe it's just a feeling, but from my memory these version number "mismatches" seem to happen very often for ia64, but are not so common
    for other ports architectures. Is there something different in the
    package build process on ia64 compared to other architectures that leads
    to (more) broken dependencies?

    Cheers,
    Frank

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