Trying to install ANY Distro via PCMCIA network card

[WCFJ]

Help Me!!! I have a Compaq LTE 5000 that has no CD-ROM drive that I've been trying to load some Linux distro on for weeks now. Here's what I've done so far.

1. Redhat 6.1 and 6.2
The pcmcia.img file from the CD did make a good boordisk that immediately recognized my net card and started the installation, sort of. It got to the "Welcome to RedHat Linux" main screen and from there goes nowhere, both in 6.1 and 6.2. Tried loading from both FTP and HTTP. Took about a week with trying different thing to get this working but always failing at that same spot. Wierd thing is that the system is not locked. I can still ping it from the system serving the installation CD. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/mad.gif

2. Slackware 7.1(?)
Got a bit farther in this one. Had to make the color disk, network disk and pcmcia disk. I am able to start the installation program successfully up until I get to select the installation media. I "THINK" I set up a NFS to serve the Slack CD on the server but the notebook doesn't seem to recognize it. Again, I can ping the notebook just fine from the server.

I really would like to load either of these distros. Maybe I need to ask the LNO community to provide me with a short tutorial on NFS mounting. Or any other enlightening infoemation would be gratly appreciated. Here's the system stats:

Notebook:
Compaq LTE 5000 P5-75MHz
810 MB HDD, 24MB RAM
LinkSys 10/100 PCMCIA NIC
No current partitions or op. sys.

Server:
Intel Celeron 266
4GB HDD, 32MB RAM
RedHat 6.2

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Unfortunately nobody can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself...

[ph34r]

With the Slack install (only one I have done via net), boot with the color/bareapm.i combo, and have the network and pcmcia disks ready. Get the pcmcia and network going (like you did before) and then make a directory like /src or /slack

On the server machine, edit /etc/exports to be

/mnt/cdrom ip.of.laptop.machine

and restart the nfs services (rpc.d I think).


Back to the laptop -
mount -t nfs ip.of.server.machine:/mnt/cdrom /src

And then do a install from a pre-mounted directory (your /src or /slack or wherever you mounted the nfs export).

Let us know!

[WCFJ]

ph34r, U da man! That sounds like it will work. I'm leaving work right now and will try it tonight and report back on it tomorrow. THANKS!! http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/biggrin.gif http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif

[WCFJ]

Well, it would have worked. My server, at times, will just lock up for no reason. The motherboard is bad and just continuing a downward spiral. I did what you suggested and it worked like a charm. It started installing and I got about 2 hrs. in when the server decided to stop working. So if I can keep the server up long enough to complete the install I'll be all set. Thanks for all the great help you've given me ph34r.



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Unfortunately nobody can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself...

[ph34r]

No problem...sorry your server machine died and you couldn't install...