Installing the Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6.06 Beta on the new server proved to be more painful than anticipated.

I know, installing beta software on "production" servers is frowned upon. This isn't a real production server in that it's not as tight as I would do for real. I do plan to upgrade the beta to the full release in June, or whenever it is released.

Anyway, the troubles...

I started with the Live CD, and tried to use the new GUI installer. I did the same thing at work on a QEMU desktop with no problems (other than time because emulation is slooooooow). I tried a few times, with various points of failures. At one point I thought that maybe the screensaver had just caused the screen to lock up and look like nothing had happend past 34%--not true. Then I thought perhaps the 4xCD-ROM drive I'd plugged into the machine was failing (a server doesn't need more as it'll probably never be used beyond installing the OS), but that wasn't happening either.

I checked the Ubuntu forums and found that there's a known bug caused by some hardware signalling in the installer. It's fixed "in the daily builds," but I cannot access them, and they don't plan to fix it in the beta, but promise to fix it before release. I understand... They do offer the traditional text-based install separate from the GUI, so I set to downloading that.

While I was waiting, I threw in a Breezy Badger (version 5.10--which means it was released in Oct '05...), the previous version to see if the install would take. I did a "server" install 'cause it's quicker, and it flew through the copies and left me with a workable prompt. Whee!

I burned the 6.06 Beta install on a CD and plugged that in. It was creeping on 1:00AM, so I just let it install the whole shebang. I regretted that after I set it loose, but decided it wasn't worth worrying about. I don't need all of the candy that comes with the GUI, but I can always stop the GUI from running after I get the software set up. I turned off the monitor after answering the last question and went to bed.

This morning the installation was complete, waiting for me to remove the CD from the drive and hit the "enter" key. The PC rebooted and very quickly brought the GUI login screen. I logged in without problems, and was greeted immediately with over 100 updates. I let the automatic updater update, and sat watching the progress bar crawl. OpenOffice failed to upgrade (some of the candy I didn't want...space will be wasted as I probably won't edit any documents on the server), but polite instructions for completing this upgrade at the command prompt followed. I did that and two seconds later all was well.

I opened a port on one of the firewalls to the new server, registered it with the dynamic DNS service, and left for work. I figured once at the office I could do the wget to download the packages I want, invoke configure and make from here, and let it chug in the background. Sadly, I didn't make sure the SSH daemon was running on the machine. I know the DNS is working 'cause using a web browser to the new machine's name brings up the default web site served by the other machine using the same firewall (that's a key to how I plan to migrate...).

Alas, I'll have to return home at lunch and fire up sshd on the new box...