[Solved] Installation of Debian Buster for Armel architecture (QNAP TS-212)

[iblackford]

Hi All,

I'm trying to install Debian Buster on an armel platform, specifically the QNAP TS-212. The last officially supported debian is buster. I seem to be getting hung up near the end of the installation process on the step where the install configures ca-certificates-java. I started the install while tailing the syslog, and it throws the error "cannot open '/etc/ssl/certs/java/cacerts' for reading': No such file or directory".

btw, I'm doing a headless installation, whereby I'm logging in through SSH to complete the installat process, so some methods may be affected by this. I can and do get a shell during installation to monitor the installation process, if this is helpful.

Thanks in advance,
Ivan Blackford

[Aki]

Hello,

I'm trying to install Debian Buster on an armel platform, specifically the QNAP TS-212. The last officially supported debian is buster. I seem to be getting hung up near the end of the installation process on the step where the install configures ca-certificates-java. I started the install while tailing the syslog, and it throws the error "cannot open '/etc/ssl/certs/java/cacerts' for reading': No such file or directory"

This bug report is relevant to your problem, but for Debian Bullseye (Debian 11) alias Debian Oldstable:

• ca-certificates-java: post-inst fails on bullseye when installed as openjdk dependency

This has been reported as fixed with the 20230710 version of the ca-certificates-java package, which is not available for Debian Buster (old-old-stable):

Code: Select all

$ rmadison ca-certificates-java
ca-certificates-java | 20190405                 | oldoldstable      | source, all
ca-certificates-java | 20190909+deb11u1         | oldstable         | source, all
ca-certificates-java | 20190909+deb11u1         | oldstable-updates | source, all
ca-certificates-java | 20230620~deb12u1~bpo12+1 | stable-backports  | source, all
ca-certificates-java | 20230620~deb12u1         | stable-updates    | source, all
ca-certificates-java | 20230710~deb12u1         | stable            | source, all
ca-certificates-java | 20240118                 | testing           | source, all
ca-certificates-java | 20240118                 | unstable          | source, all

I tried installing the package named ca-certificates-java in a VM running Debian Buster (arch=amd64), and it installed without issues:

Code: Select all

# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
Release:        10
Codename:       buster

# cat /etc/debian_version 
10.13

# LANG=C apt show ca-certificates-java
Package: ca-certificates-java
Version: 20190405
Priority: optional
Section: java
Maintainer: Debian Java Maintainers <pkg-java-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Installed-Size: 44.0 kB
Depends: ca-certificates (>= 20121114), default-jre-headless | java8-runtime-headless, libnss3 (>= 3.12.10-2~)
Tag: protocol::ssl, role::app-data, security::authentication,
 security::cryptography
Download-Size: 15.7 kB
APT-Manual-Installed: yes
APT-Sources: http://192.168.122.1:3142/debian buster/main amd64 Packages
Description: Common CA certificates (JKS keystore)
 This package uses the hooks of the ca-certificates package to update the
 cacerts JKS keystore used for many java runtimes.

Therefore, I suspect there's something else is going on with your Debian installation; some wild guesses:

• are you installing packages that are not from Debian repositories ?

• are you sure your installed Debian version is Buster ?

• something else ?

--
[1] https://bugs.debian.org/1038635
[2] https://bugs.debian.org/1030129

[iblackford]

Thanks for the in-depth look into this!

I'm following the standard install, not specifically asking for software that is not from the debian repositories. One of the few choices I have for installed packages is the window manager....I chose XFCE. And yes, it's buster that i'm trying to install. As an example, here's where I'm getting the kernel from:

http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/bust ... ernel-6281

Is there a way to pause the installation and manually install ca-certificates-java? if so, whereabouts in the install process should I pause it, and how?

Thanks, Ivan

[Aki]

The Debian Installer should allow you to install a base system without java. This way you may install the base system and take care of Java afterwards (if it is required).

[iblackford]

Thanks Aki,

You were correct, I was able to get a base installation working if I didn't install any desktop manager.

My next question is, how would I go about now upgrading to Bullseye? Due to some limitations in the flash on this device, there is no pre-compiled debian version for it above buster...but I have resized the partition layout to support the larger kernel in new versions...I'm just not sure where to go from here.

[Aki]

Hello,

You were correct, I was able to get a base installation working if I didn't install any desktop manager.

I'm glad you sorted it out. :)

Please, mark the discussion as "solved" manually adding the text tag "[Solved]" at the beginning of the subject of the first message; you can also choose a more informative subject, i.e. :

[Solved] Installation of Debian Buster for Armel architecture (QNAP TS-212)

Happy Debian !

My next question is, how would I go about now upgrading to Bullseye? Due to some limitations in the flash on this device, there is no pre-compiled debian version for it above buster...but I have resized the partition layout to support the larger kernel in new versions...I'm just not sure where to go from here. :)

The Release Notes for Debian Bullseye for Armel architetures are here [1]:

• Release Notes for Debian 11 (bullseye), ARM EABI

The instructions about upgrading from Debian Buster to Debian Bullseye are here [2]:

• Upgrades from Debian 10 (buster)

Hope this helps.
--
[1] https://www.debian.org/releases/oldstable/armel/release-notes/index.en.html
[2] https://www.debian.org/releases/oldstable/armel/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html