Greg's House of Treats

Well, it seems that, in addition to extra hoops for installing onto RAID, the nouveau kernel module crashes when trying to boot.  Since (unlike Ubuntu or Mint), the debian installer works with RAID, I downgraded to debian stable ("squeeze").

1. Install debian without the desktop.  Reboot.
2. Read up on nvidia drivers.  Decide to try the "debian way".  (http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers)
3. Nvidia proprietary drivers are updated in backports repository.  Add it to /etc/apt/sources.list
   deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main
4. Install desktop after the fact (http://wiki.debian.org/Gnome)
   apt-get install aptitude tasksel
   tasksel install gnome-desktop --new-install
5. Remove nouveau (http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=69888 | http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=54330)
   echo "blacklist nouveau" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
   apt-get purge --remove xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
6. Use aptitude, and remove every package with the word "nouveau" in it.  However, nouveau.ko is in the linux kernel package, so I can't actually remove it.
7. Continue, re-install nvidia drivers
   apt-get install --reinstall nvidia-glx
8. This is a key step (see http://linux.koolsolutions.com/2009/10/11/howto-blacklisting-kernel-module-from-auto-loading-in-debian/)
   depmod -a
   update-initramfs -u -k `uname -r` -v
9. Reboot.  Success!

1. Backup home directory.  Backup etc.  Unplug scratch drives
2. Boot live cd
3. Install mdadm and lvm2
4. Re-assemble the raid partitions
   mdadm --assemble --scan
5. Run linux mint installer.  The /dev/mdXX partitions are recognised and usable for install.  Re-format existing partitions (except /home). Choose /dev/md1 (/boot partition) as the partition for the boot loader.
6. I got an error in the install.  Maybe benign?  It says:
   An error occurred while migrating data.  More details may be found in /var/log/syslog.  The installation will continue, but some or all of the documents and settings you requested may not have been transferred to the installed system.
   The error is that it couldn't mount /dev/sdb5 (which belongs to /dev/md5), because it doesn't know the file system "linux raid member".  Click OK to continue.
7. Choose "continue testing" at the end of the install.
8. Now we have to set up the newly installed system to recognise the raid.  This is exactly as described in part 5 of this document:
   http://www.howtoforge.com/install-ubuntu-with-software-raid-10
   With the modificaiton of additional required partitions (/usr, /var, etc.), and installing lvm2 as well as mdadm.
9. Reboot.
10. Well, the reboot didn't work, because I neglected to update grub.  Here is the error that I got:
    GRUB Loading stage1.5
    GRUB loading, please wait...
    Error 15
11. Boot off of the live CD again, re-install mdadm & lvm2, re-scan raid, re-mount volumes, enter chroot.
    apt-get install mdadm lvm2
    mdadm --assemble --scan
    mkdir /myraid
    mount /dev/md5 /myraid
    mount /dev/md1 /myraid/boot
    mount /dev/md6 /myraid/usr
    mount /dev/md7 /myraid/var
    mount /dev/md8 /myraid/tmp
    mount --bind /dev /myraid/dev
    mount -t devpts devpts /myraid/dev/pts
    mount -t proc proc /myraid/proc
    mount -t sysfs sysfs /myraid/sys
    chroot /myraid
12. Follow instructions on this page:
    http://iiordanov.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-install-linux-ubuntu-debian-etc.html
    Start at step (10). It goes smoothly.  However, I notice that my swap is not RAID.  I wonder if this is on purpose?  So I left as two swap partitions in the fstab, to be resolved later.
13. Do step (11), note that I did not have to modify /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf, since it already had the correct entries.
14. Do step (12).  This failed.  Note 1: the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg did not exist.  Note 2: grub-install was done to the raw disk, not the raid disk, such as:
    grub-install --recheck --modules="raid" /dev/sda
15. Reboot.
16. Now I got a grub menu, which listed a few options including "/dev/md1", "/dev/sda1", and "/dev/sdb1".  Choosting the first option causes a black screen of death.  Choosing "/dev/sda1" yields similar results.  It turns out that something is happening, but nothing is displayed.  Hitting e.g. arrow keys or ESC causes the messages to display.  The boot seems to hang on the following message:
    ** Starting CUPS printer/spooler server **    [ OK ]
17. Boot off of the live CD again, re-install mdadm & lvm2, re-scan raid, re-mount volumes, enter chroot.
18. Nothing interesting to see.  Here is boot.log:
    fsck from util-linux 2.19.1^M
    fsck from util-linux 2.19.1^M
    fsck from util-linux 2.19.1^M
    fsck from util-linux 2.19.1^M
    fsck from util-linux 2.19.1^M
    fsck from util-linux 2.19.1^M
    /dev/md5: clean, 9326/305824 files, 123307/1222912 blocks^M
    /dev/md8: clean, 12/305824 files, 54365/1222912 blocks^M
    /dev/md7: clean, 8815/305824 files, 130828/1222912 blocks^M
    /dev/md6: clean, 163285/1221600 files, 772988/4885744 blocks^M
    Reiserfs super block in block 16 on 0x90a of format 3.6 with standard journal^M
    Blocks (total/free): 110268128/33138842 by 4096 bytes^M
    Filesystem is clean^M
    /dev/md1: clean, 246/124928 files, 56798/497856 blocks^M
     * Starting mDNS/DNS-SD daemon^[[154G[ OK ]^M
     * Starting network connection manager^[[154G[ OK ]^M
     * Starting CUPS printing spooler/server^[[154G[ OK ]^M
     * Starting emergency keypress handling^[[154G[ OK ]^M
     * Stopping emergency keypress handling^[[154G[ OK ]^M
     * Starting System V runlevel compatibility^[[154G[ OK ]^M
     * Starting save system clock to hardware clock^[[154G[ OK ]^M
     * Starting save sound card(s') mixer state(s)^[[154G[ OK ]^M
     * Starting eCryptfs^[[154G[ OK ]^M
    Here is the end of kern.log:
    Apr  2 20:28:54 gelato kernel: [   18.535691] e1000e: eth0 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: Rx/Tx
    Apr  2 20:28:54 gelato kernel: [   18.536853] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready
    Apr  2 20:29:04 gelato kernel: [   28.840999] eth0: no IPv6 routers present
    Apr  2 20:31:14 gelato kernel: Kernel logging (proc) stopped.
    Here is the end of syslog:
    Apr  2 20:29:04 gelato avahi: contact your administrator and convince him to use a different DNS domain,
    Apr  2 20:29:04 gelato avahi: since .local should be used exclusively for Zeroconf technology.
    Apr  2 20:29:04 gelato avahi: For more information, see http://avahi.org/wiki/AvahiAndUnicastDotLocal
    Apr  2 20:29:04 gelato kernel: [   28.840999] eth0: no IPv6 routers present
    Apr  2 20:29:12 gelato ntpdate[1303]: adjust time server 91.189.94.4 offset 0.213605 sec
    Apr  2 20:31:14 gelato kernel: Kernel logging (proc) stopped.
    Apr  2 20:31:14 gelato rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="5.8.1" x-pid="1172" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] exiting on signal 15.