Debian bug report logs - #997
Root Help Information Scrolls

Message received at debian-bugs:

From simons-rock.edu!jimr Sat Jun 17 10:29:04 1995
Return-Path: <jimr@simons-rock.edu>
Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp
	(Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sN1g7-0007meC; Sat, 17 Jun 95 10:29 PDT
Received: from plato.simons-rock.edu by pixar.com with SMTP id AA04777
  (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Sat, 17 Jun 1995 10:27:36 -0700
Received: from simons-rock.edu by plato.simons-rock.edu with smtp
	(Smail3.1.29.1 #3) id m0sN1da-000017C; Sat, 17 Jun 95 13:26 EDT
Message-Id: <m0sN1da-000017C@plato.simons-rock.edu>
To: grantbow@netcom.com (Grant R. Bowman), debian-bugs@pixar.com
Cc: imurdock@debian.org (Ian Murdock)
Subject: Re: Bug#997: Root Help Information Scrolls 
In-Reply-To: Message from grantbow@netcom.com (Grant R. Bowman) 
   of "Fri, 16 Jun 1995 22:47:39 PDT." <v02120d05ac080d2168ea@[192.0.2.1]> 
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 13:26:26 -0400
From: "James A. Robinson" <jimr@simons-rock.edu>


> oh, it's just the motd that gets cut off Ian (see later as well),   <---
> 
> changes root password,
> creates a non-root user with finger information,
> all of the following information is scrolled up due to the loop     <---
> "       You should now login as `root'
>         ... [stuff about mount, dpkg, umount]
>         Good luck!"

Would is be a good idea if this first-time information was in a
stored in a Debian-HOWTO in /usr/doc?  Or will the book cover
all this in an easy-to-find way?


Jim

Message received at debian-bugs:

From netcom.com!grantbow Fri Jun 16 22:49:18 1995
Return-Path: <grantbow@netcom.com>
Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp
	(Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sMqkv-0005z9C; Fri, 16 Jun 95 22:49 PDT
Received: from netcom13.netcom.com by pixar.com with SMTP id AA08833
  (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Fri, 16 Jun 1995 22:47:50 -0700
Received: from [192.0.2.1] by netcom13.netcom.com (8.6.12/Netcom)
	id WAA26866; Fri, 16 Jun 1995 22:48:24 -0700
X-Sender: grantbow@netcom13.netcom.com
Message-Id: <v02120d05ac080d2168ea@[192.0.2.1]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 22:47:39 -0700
To: imurdock@debian.org (Ian Murdock)
From: grantbow@netcom.com (Grant R. Bowman)
Subject: Re: Bug#997: Root Help Information Scrolls
Cc: debian-bugs@pixar.com

At 6:11 AM 6/16/95, Ian Murdock wrote:
>   Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 17:52:39 -0700
>   From: grantbow@netcom.com (Grant R. Bowman)
>
>   During the configuration of the base system, some of the text to
>   assist the root user when logging in for the first time scrolls off
>   the screen.
>
>What text does this?  I specifically designed each screen so that it
>could be read without a pager.  It does not scroll on my system, BTW.

I re-e2mkfs my little 13 MB partition onto which I am installing the base
system and started over to check this.  Like I said, this is for testing
purposes, so this little setup suits me fine until the real interface to
dpkg comes out.  I am using my other existing 12 MB partition for swap
space (though I don't need it with 12 MB RAM installed and not running X
under debian) that I use with my Slackware (boo, but with X right now)
installation which I am still using as my Linux system.

It says welcome to .93 Release 5,
builds my initial `find.codes' database,
updates my ld.so.cache
gives two paragraphs that begin with
        "Before proceeding, you need to set a poasword..."
        "Why such caution?  The root account..."
INIT: Entering runlevel: 2
Starting syslog daemons: syslogd klogd

prints the issue,
I logins as root,
oh, it's just the motd that gets cut off Ian (see later as well),   <---

changes root password,
creates a non-root user with finger information,
all of the following information is scrolled up due to the loop     <---
"       You should now login as `root'
        ... [stuff about mount, dpkg, umount]
        Good luck!"

Now (something I haven't reported yet, but had some notes on) the SAME TWO
PARAGRAPHS that begin with "Before proceeding, you need to set a
poasword..." and "Why such caution?  The root account..." mentioned earlier
appear (causing this scrolling of the text).  So **** THIS IS THE REAL
PROBLEM **** not the scrolling or length of the text.

I am now prompted (again) to "Enter new password: " for root.  After I set
it, I am again prompted to add a user.  I press Ctrl-D and I get the same
two paragraphs again.

This time, I am going to try to simply create a file named /root/.configure
and kill all processes on pty1 from pty2 logging in as grantbow and su to
root so as not to trip on that initial .bash_profile script mentioned in
the adduser bug.

Oops, that didn't work, it just did an infinite loop saying:

Hmm.. you have already configured this, but somehow I am still
here...
mv /root/.bash_profile~: No such file or directory

Hmm.. you have already configured this, but somehow I am still
[you get the idea]

*Now I am going to try to copy my /home/grantbow/.bash_profile to
/root/.bash_profile~ and try again.  Now when I logged in, I got the motd
and then it said:

Hmm.. you have already configured this, but somehow I am still
here...

Okay.  I should be gone now.  Please logout and login again...

When I did,  all is now grand.  I guess you can take this bug number 997
and this e-mail as a report of that looping behavior so I won't have to
write up anything any more.  This is a better description than I could
summarize one anyway, as it includes all the steps I took from reformatting
the hard disk on down.

I know this will help...

Cheers,

--
-- Grant R. Bowman                                AdvoTech
-- <grantbow@netcom.com>         Computer and Software Asset Manaagement

Message received at debian-bugs:

From kryten.it.com.au!andrew Fri Jun 16 06:22:02 1995
Return-Path: <andrew@kryten.it.com.au>
Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp
	(Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sMbLV-0005kIC; Fri, 16 Jun 95 06:22 PDT
Received: from kryten.it.com.au by pixar.com with SMTP id AA18489
  (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Fri, 16 Jun 1995 06:20:28 -0700
Received: by kryten.it.com.au
	id <m0sMbLK-000Ad5C@kryten.it.com.au>
	(Debian /\oo/\ Smail3.1.29.1 #29.32); Fri, 16 Jun 95 21:21 WST
Message-Id: <m0sMbLK-000Ad5C@kryten.it.com.au>
From: andrew@kryten.it.com.au (Andrew Howell)
Subject: Re: Bug#997: Root Help Information Scrolls
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 21:21:50 +0800 (WST)
In-Reply-To: <m0sMbB8-00002qC@debra.debian.org> from "Ian Murdock" at Jun 16, 95 08:11:00 am
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 PGP2]
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 927       

> 
>    Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 17:52:39 -0700
>    From: grantbow@netcom.com (Grant R. Bowman)
> 
>    During the configuration of the base system, some of the text to
>    assist the root user when logging in for the first time scrolls off
>    the screen.
> 
> What text does this?  I specifically designed each screen so that it
> could be read without a pager.  It does not scroll on my system, BTW.

I don't remember it scrolling on any of the machines I've installed it
on either.

Andrew

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dehydration - 34%, Recollection of previous evening - 2%, embarrassment
factor - 91%.  Advise repair schedule:- off line for 36 hours, re-boot
startup disk, and replace head - wow, what a night!
                -- Kryten in Red Dwarf `The Last Day'

Andrew Howell				               andrew@it.com.au 
Perth, Western Australia		      howellaa@cs.curtin.edu.au 

Message received at debian-bugs:

From debian.org!imurdock Fri Jun 16 06:10:58 1995
Return-Path: <imurdock@debian.org>
Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp
	(Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sMbAn-0005z9C; Fri, 16 Jun 95 06:10 PDT
Received: from debra.debian.org by pixar.com with SMTP id AA18296
  (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Fri, 16 Jun 1995 06:09:25 -0700
Received: by debra.debian.org
	id m0sMbB8-00002qC
	(Debian /\oo/\ Smail3.1.29.1 #29.31); Fri, 16 Jun 95 08:11 EST
Message-Id: <m0sMbB8-00002qC@debra.debian.org>
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 95 08:11 EST
From: imurdock@debian.org (Ian Murdock)
To: grantbow@netcom.com
Cc: debian-bugs@pixar.com
In-Reply-To: <v02120d0fac06768c74f9@[192.0.2.1]> (grantbow@netcom.com)
Subject: Re: Bug#997: Root Help Information Scrolls

   Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 17:52:39 -0700
   From: grantbow@netcom.com (Grant R. Bowman)

   During the configuration of the base system, some of the text to
   assist the root user when logging in for the first time scrolls off
   the screen.

What text does this?  I specifically designed each screen so that it
could be read without a pager.  It does not scroll on my system, BTW.

Message received at debian-bugs:

From netcom.com!grantbow Thu Jun 15 17:54:10 1995
Return-Path: <grantbow@netcom.com>
Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp
	(Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sMPfl-0005z9C; Thu, 15 Jun 95 17:54 PDT
Received: from netcom17.netcom.com by pixar.com with SMTP id AA14944
  (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Thu, 15 Jun 1995 17:52:43 -0700
Received: from DialupEudora by netcom17.netcom.com (8.6.12/Netcom)
	id RAA28200; Thu, 15 Jun 1995 17:53:24 -0700
X-Sender: grantbow@netcom17.netcom.com
Message-Id: <v02120d0fac06768c74f9@[192.0.2.1]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 17:52:39 -0700
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
From: grantbow@netcom.com (Grant R. Bowman)
Subject: Root Help Information Scrolls

Package: base
Version: 93R5

During the configuration of the base system, some of the text to assist the
root user when logging in for the first time scrolls off the screen.

The workaround (if new users know it) is to use shift-pageup to read the
information.  I suggest you pipe this output to more.

I am using Debian 0.93R5 alpha, kernel version 1.2.1 and libc 4.6.27.  I
have installed ONLY the base system for testing purposes.

Cheers,

--
-- Grant R. Bowman                                AdvoTech
-- <grantbow@netcom.com>         Computer and Software Asset Manaagement