Author: Boruch Baum Date: To: dng Subject: [DNG] devuan installer main menu access
Short version: From the screen that lets the user select specific system
components to install, eg. XFCE, print server, SSH server, when I tabbed
to the selection "go back" with the intention of getting the main menu,
what happened instead was the installer began downloading "1173
packages". The only way I could figure to stop was to M-C-del, producing
a SIGTERM which rebooted.
Expanded version:
1] As a follow-up to a comment I made last week about saving downloaded
components for future installs (saving bandwidth/time), I've been
experimenting with how a user could re-use components using the ash
shell that's available with the net installer.
2] The first set of downloads, for the installer's own components, seem
to be deleted immediately upon their install. I was not able to retrieve
them for re-use from ash. FAILURE
3] The second set of downloads, for the linux base system, may have been
left on the target, but in advance of that download step, the debian
install commands with which I am familiar were not available. I had
archived deb files available to the installer and to the target, but got
stuck at trying to perform something like 'apt-get update' to let the
installer know they were there. FAILURE
4] The third set of downloads, for the additional system components,
should have been the easy lift. What I did was deselect the options for
a desktop and for a print server, expecting the system to want to
download ~273 files, as it did on prior tests. At that point, I tried
doing what I had no problem doing for the prior two stages - return to
the main install menu, and open up a shell. I tabbed to 'go back',
pressed 'enter', but the installer began downloading packages instead of
presenting the main menu, and indicated that it would download 1173
packages instead of 273.
4.1] Was it a case of 'fat-fingerng'? I don't think so, but it's asking
a lot to attempt to re-create this because with slow bandwidth, each
install attempt takes a long time to get to this stage. Today's
connection was especially slow. This has been the only time and point in
the install process that I've had a problem returning to the main menu,
so it might have been an errant keystroke, but I think I was being careful.
4.2] It would be nice to have had a less destructive method of aborting
the download than to reboot.