Problems installing the Hurd

[oberg]

Hello,

I have been following the hurd mailing lists for a few weeks now, and
with the recent post of the new installation guide, I decided to give it
a try.  I originally attempted the cross-install using the cross-install
script, yet ran into a tremendous number of dpkg errors when I ran
the native-install script the second time.  These errors stemmed from
libc0.2 being unable to be configured.  I tracked it down to an error
in a log stating the cause of the failure as the following:

/dev/fd/5: /sbin/ldconfig: Permission Denied

and an 'ls' within /dev/fd gave a 'Bus Error'  (is this similar to a
segmentation fault?).

Well, I figured that I should try the second option (the tarball) before
asking for help, so I reformatted (just to be sure) according to directions
and extracted the tarball onto the drive.  Upon executing the native-install
script the second time (with no errors on the first), I received again
dpkg configuration errors, this time with some postconfiguration scripts 
failing.
i.e.:

Setting up hurd (20000921) ...
dpkg (subprocess): unable to execute post-installation script: Permission denied
dpkg: error processing hurd (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 2

This error was reported on the following 12 packages: 
 grub gettext-base dpkg findutils inetutils hurd grep e2fsprogs hostname 
fileutils
 diff debianutils

and dpkg-mountable gave the rather entertaining error:
    unable to stat installed post-installation script 
    `/var/lib/dpkg/info/dpkg-mountable.postinst': Computer bought the farm

When I 'ls -ld /var/lib/dpkg/info/*postinst' I can see the following suspicious 
output:
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          180 Sep  6 17:37 adduser.postinst
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          214 Dec  3  1999 ae.postinst
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         3295 Aug  1 09:15 base-files.postinst
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         1442 Nov 29  1999 base-passwd.postinst
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          306 Aug  6 18:08 bash.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Aug  6 16:45 debianutils.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Jul 26 07:18 diff.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Nov  4  1999 dpkg-ftp.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Sep  4  1999 dpkg-mountable.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Oct  5  1999 dpkg.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Aug  1 08:11 e2fsprogs.postinst
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          500 Jan 17  2000 ed.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Jul 31 07:25 fileutils.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Aug  6 17:04 findutils.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Jul 27 06:48 gettext-base.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Apr 12  2000 grep.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Jul 27 07:55 grub.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Dec  3  1999 gzip.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Dec 20  1999 hostname.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Sep 22 20:55 hurd.postinst
crwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       0,   0 Jan 21  2000 inetutils.postinst
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         1694 Jul 27 08:02 less.postinst
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         6153 Jul 19 10:19 libc0.2.postinst
[snip]

What is going on with those postinst files?  When I mount the drive up in
linux the files are normal... but in either single user or multiuser mode
under the hurd they appear as above.  

If anyone has any ideas for either the cross-install error above or the
postinst file problems, please let me know.

Thanks for all of your work on the hurd, I am really intrigued by the 
architecture (being a sys admin) and am hoping to take a crack at contributing.

 - Michael Oberg
   oberg@softhome.net


ps  I also noticed that the version of the hurd package is different 
between the cross-install and the tarball.  (the cross-install being newer).

pps  Mentioning the fact that you need sharutils and wget for the cross-install
script more distinctly (in the installation page) may help a bit as well (it 
was easy for me to read the script, but why not?)