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#1 2009-07-22 20:43:13

lifanov
Member
Registered: 2009-03-16
Posts: 44

install Arch over Debian remotely

Hello.
I got a great deal on a VPS, but the hosting company didn't offer Arch.
So I read http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … ting_Linux.
I upgraded Debian Lenny->Squeeze->Sid to closer match the package versions.
Then I installed pacman.static, did

pacman.static -Syf pacman

, edited the mirrorlist and did

pacman -Syf base base-devel

. I replaced the native Debian sshd with Arch sshd. Then I installed yaourt, powerpill, and reflector and was on my way to installing the rest of the packages I like.
But my system didn't survive a reboot. Is there something I missed? I'm using OpenVZ.
I'm about to re-provision it and start over.

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#2 2009-07-22 22:21:54

Bob_Sheep
Member
From: Scotland
Registered: 2008-10-06
Posts: 27

Re: install Arch over Debian remotely

... Oh ... My... God (where god is any deity, possibly loki)

Did you actually read that wiki page?

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#3 2009-07-23 03:30:46

djszapi
Member
From: Cambridge, United Kingdom
Registered: 2009-06-14
Posts: 1,439
Website

Re: install Arch over Debian remotely

And what's the exact error message ?

[quota]"Didn't survive a reboot"[/quota] <- What does it mean by you? I can image lot of thing..

Can you chroot for it to repair ?

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#4 2009-07-23 13:20:57

lifanov
Member
Registered: 2009-03-16
Posts: 44

Re: install Arch over Debian remotely

I didn't expect anything nice to happen the first time around as I was reckless.
It was a very workable system without any glitches before the reboot.
I tried the same with two VMs. The part that caused the most problems with VMs, but not the VPS is the

pacman.static -Syf pacman

.
Restarting the sshd was also done inside a screen and without forgetting to add it to /etc/hosts.allow.
I can't diagnose what happened to my VPS as I can't see the boot messages.
What I missed on the VMs was

mkinitcpio -p kernel26

because Arch doesn't do that if mkinitcpio and kernel26 are installed in one go. But it couldn't have been a problem with my VPS because OpenVZ uses its own kernel. I'll try it again and see what happens.

Did you actually read that wiki page?

I read half of it. I didn't want a chrooted system. I wanted to write over the Debian install.

Last edited by lifanov (2009-07-23 13:44:01)

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#5 2009-07-23 16:00:04

Bob_Sheep
Member
From: Scotland
Registered: 2008-10-06
Posts: 27

Re: install Arch over Debian remotely

What you are trying to do is damn near impossible. It might just about be possible if you resized the debian partition, and then created a new partition for Arch.  Then you could install Arch properly to the new partition and update grub.  Then you would just have to use parted to move the partitions around and get rid of debian.

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#6 2009-07-23 17:36:14

lifanov
Member
Registered: 2009-03-16
Posts: 44

Re: install Arch over Debian remotely

I don't think I get to partition my disk.
It worked pretty well before the reboot.
I will figure it out and then post what I did.

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#7 2009-07-23 17:46:50

Bob_Sheep
Member
From: Scotland
Registered: 2008-10-06
Posts: 27

Re: install Arch over Debian remotely

Of course it worked before the reboot, you were still using the debian kernel.

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#8 2009-07-24 20:06:45

djszapi
Member
From: Cambridge, United Kingdom
Registered: 2009-06-14
Posts: 1,439
Website

Re: install Arch over Debian remotely

Don't use debian kernel, if you use, because it's the most patched one smile

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#9 2009-07-25 14:41:32

lifanov
Member
Registered: 2009-03-16
Posts: 44

Re: install Arch over Debian remotely

In a VM I can still boot with a Debian kernel if I choose. On OpenVZ I have to boot with whichever kernel is provided to me, which most likely came from CentOS.
I actually did get it working on a real computer. Once again, the biggest mistake was updating pacman with pacman.

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#10 2009-08-20 16:17:46

Eldomir
Member
Registered: 2005-03-10
Posts: 11

Re: install Arch over Debian remotely

Really interested in this, since I'm looking at a VPS that doesn't offer Arch either. Keep us updated!

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