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Compaq Presario 2100
Compaq Evo N1015v
 * Compaq Presario 2100
 * Compaq Evo N1015v
 * Sony Vaio PCG-K25

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Laptop LCD only shows half of the screen

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Known affected systems

Toshiba Portege 3500

Symptoms

Only the top half of the screen is visible - the bottom half is totally black.

Workaround

Obviously, this is a major setback to your install!

So, to fix, press the ["Fn"] and ["F5"] button together.

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Laptop keyboard problem

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Known affected systems

  • Compaq Presario 2100
  • Compaq Evo N1015v
  • Sony Vaio PCG-K25

Symptoms

Keyboard does not respond to initial language selection screen.

Workaround

Either :

  • Use an external USB keyboard
  • As linux boots, tap caps lock quickly over and over. Keep doing it until you get to the installer's language selection screen, at which point, if you're lucky, the keyboard will work.

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System Lockup on PCMCIA load

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Known affected systems

Dell Inspiron 600m

Symptoms

When probing for hardware, the system locks up while loading PC Card devices.

Workaround

A workaround is described in the Sarge installation manual: http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/ch05s01.html#id2512042

Boot stops after USB probe or can not read CD ROM

Known affected systems

17" Apple ?PowerBook 1 Ghz (first version 17")

Workaround

Dissable Level 3 memory cache i.e. install-powerpc nol3

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PCMCIA device shifting (between CD-ROM and NIC) during install

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Problem

You want to install Debian via CD, but you only have your CD-ROM drive and NIC (which you want to setup and use as primary NIC during installation) accessible via a single PCMCIA slot in your computer.

Workaround

Boot the installer with the CD-ROM device plugged into the PCMCIA slot and do a normal 1st stage installation, except that you should skip network setup or just type in dummy values at this point.

Then when it says "Installation complete", choose 'Go back' to drop back to the main menu. Now change the PCMCIA device from CD-ROM to NIC, and choose to 'Detect network hardware'. Your NIC should now be detected and you can continue (again 'Go back' to main menu) to 'Network configuration'.

If your NIC is a wireless, press Alt+F2 to get a shell. Change the PCMCIA device from NIC to CD-ROM and type in the shell:

 chroot /target
 mount /cdrom
 apt-get install wireless-tools
 umount /cdrom
 exit

Go back to Alt+F1 and change the PCMCIA device from CD-ROM to NIC.

Choose 'Continue' to reboot (with NIC in PCMCIA slot) and thereby finish the 1st stage of the installation process.

When 2st stage comes up after the reboot, you should have a working NIC and as such you can choose to download extra packages via ftp, http, etc.

Should you, however, not have a working NIC at this point, go to the shell (Alt+F2) and try to reload your NIC:

 ifdown <iface> && ifup <iface>

Return to Alt+F1 and continue installation (assuming networking now works)...

B/R, Frederik Dannemare

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Netbooting, installing to usb stick(s)

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Problem

You want to install Debian via netboot to usb memory sticks (no ordinary disks available).

Workaround

I just tried to install sarge onto my STB-3036 unit via netbooting (dhcpd/tftpd). The only 'disks' available on this unit is 2x128 MB usb memory sticks.

Had to boot with "linux debian-installer/framebuffer=false".

The netboot image, however, doesn't have the usb-storage module included. Thus, I had to extract this module from kernel-image-2.4.26-1-386_2.4.26-4_i386.deb and place it on a web server available to the STB-3036.

Then when partman prompted me to "Partition disks", I went to a shell and worked my way around the problem:

 mknod /dev/sda b 8 0
 mknod /dev/sdb b 8 16
 mkdir /lib/modules/2.4.26-1-386/kernel/drivers/usb/storage
 cd /lib/modules/2.4.26-1-386/kernel/drivers/usb/storage
 wget http://www-host/foo/bar/usb-storage.o
 depmod -a
 modprobe usb-storage
 modprobe sd_mod

Went back to Alt+F1 and reloaded the partitioner. Now I could see my usb sticks available as /dev/sda and /dev/sdb.

I was really nervous at the very end of the installation, since 'df -h' told me that 116.4 MB out of 117.1 MB (on /) was used :) Had a separate partition for /var where 81.6 MB out of 88.5 was used. Swap space was 32 MB (20 MB was in use).

Upon reboot I went to BIOS, only to discover that the STB-3036 in fact does not supporting boot from usb. Yeah, really stupid I did not check up on this, but I was certain that I has seen this option in BIOS.

Well, at least I hope somebody with a usb bootable unit can make use of this stuff.

B/R, Frederik Dannemare