Ok.  Here’s a key note for Endian Community Firewall 2.1:  It blows up without any particular error information unless you have everything just so.  It gives you a “Error:  Could not install packages.” 

And then prompts for a reboot.

Packages?  What packages?  Give me a hint, willya?  BTW, it happens on both the 2.1 and 2.0 respin editions, and maybe others.  Here’s what I was able to determine:

I had turned off the Serial and Parallel ports in the CMOS setup.  Evidently, it will not load without these.  Further, it won’t even load with them unless you use the command nousborpcmcia (No USB or PCMCIA) at the Endian CD boot screen.  If you forget that little item, it will crash with memory registers splattered all across the screen in 80 column mode.

Ugly.

But I have the measure now.  We’ll see what happens next.

Popularity: 3% [?]