Request to update utilities to avoid installation hanging

[Tonto]

Two years ago I purchased a Qotom Q190N MiniPC and successfully installed Debian 8.2, subsequently upgraded to 10.1. A second Qotom of the same model purchased a few months ago fails to install, even with the latest inatallation CD. Both hang after reporting "Installed discover (amd64)".

Further investigation revealed:

1. PCLinuxOS live disk and install also hang at what appears to be the same point: hardware discovery.
2. Puppy Linux runs fine.
3. System Rescue CD 5.3.0 (Gentoo based) runs fine, as does the latest SRCD 7.0 (Arch based).
4. ArchBang Linux installs cleanly and runs fine.

From this I conclude that the hardware is OK, but the Debian and PCLinuxOS hardware discovery utilities have not yet advanced to the hardware I am using.

I believe that Debian 10.1 uses the following utilities to identify hardware:

discover (2.1.2-5.2)
discover-data (2.2010.10.18)

However, even the latest install ISO fails using updated packages:

discover_2.1.2-8_amd64.deb
discover-data_2.2013.01.11_all.deb

Hardware listing of both Qotoms reveals them to be identical apart from a minor change in CPU stepping. The SoC is an Intel Atom Bay Trail with four Celeron J1900 cores, and during the interim between my purchases it moved from Stepping 8 to Stepping 9. However, this resulted in a change in CPU flags which may be the problem:

Qotom #1 unique flags: cpuid pti tsc_known_freq tsc_reliable
Qotom #2 unique flags: ibpb ibrs ida kaiser md_clear stibp

I'd very much like to resolve this since it has stopped me using the new box. Intel Atoms and Qotom's are both very popular (the latter being sold on Amazon) and I'd be happy to work directly with the maintainers of the discover utility to fix it.

Most grateful for any advice.

[stevepusser]

Out of curiosity, and because I help develop MX Linux (derived from Buster), can you boot an MX Linux 19.4 AHS or KDE Live USB on the thing?

I don't think it's discover or the like, but a newer kernel and other backports that would get it working on Buster, which those editions of MX already have.

[Tonto]

Yes, both MX and AntiX boot and install without problem. I've tried both and am still making do with Antix, but both are way too "over-configured" for me, since I use a highly customized setup for hardware design and uC coding.

> a newer kernel and other backports

Possible, but I've seen nothing relevant to either, and Deb, Deb-based and PCLinuxOS distros all hang - not fail gracefully but just hang - at exactly the same point. Everything proceeds nicely, so the kernel is up and running; then the message comes up that the hardware discovery utility has been installed and ... nothing. Ever again!

Besides, the discovery list is dated 2013 which, for a distro of Deb's status and importance, seems a mite too tardy.

[Tonto]

Further to a PM from another Forum Member I've submitted a bug report using 'reportbug' as advised.

Thanks for the tip. Will await developments.