[Cialug] migrating from ubuntu server to debian

[Paul Gray]

Matthew Nuzum wrote:
> Hi Paul, you're memory is pretty good. I've tweaked a few things and
> once I'm done I'll reply w/ the exact steps I used and know work.
> 
> I'm in the chroot section trying to decide if I need an initrd and
> noticed that /boot is completely empty. This implies I'm going to need
> something, I think. Any suggestions on what? Does apt-get install
> linux-image-2.6... sound right?
> 

Good to hear!  I realized that I made a few typo's (for posterity: 
forgetting /debian off the cns mirror reference to the debootstrap 
command, space between target and dev, and not specifying that you'd 
need to do "dpkg-reconfigure locales" to get the errors to go away), but 
I'm glad that you've made it this far.

  apt-get install linux-image

should get you a kernel to boot.  Make sure that it creates an initrd, 
otherwise you'll want to manually generate one with the mkinitramfs command.

Another issue: You will want to populate /etc/fstab before you reboot.

One thing you might want to do inside the chroot to get a 
smoother-working system is simply run "tasksel", and populate your new 
system with default configurations.

With regard to grub, if you install grub2 in the new Debian target, 
you'll be prompted to choose the boot drive - which will overwrite your 
Ubuntu grub configuration.  That's a bit discomforting when you're doing 
things remotely.  However, the grub2 installer will then run the 
30_os-prober to find all of your bootable partitions, and I'd bet that 
it'll find your Ubuntu partitions and add them to the list.  Give it a 
spin in VBox, and the right solution should bubble up to the surface.

-PG