Debian floppy disk install

[Icarus]

:eek:
I've tried Slackware on this laptop I have 'aquired' (old Acer, 100mhz w/24-32MB of RAM) but it's CD is an external SCSI and I was not able to get Slacks root disks to load it...now I shall try the Debian floppy install method.

I know the floppy works so this should work...anyone have any experiance with this method? If this fails I could try the Ethernet install and put the ISOs on a shared system on my network...

Anyone? I think I have it right...lets see if I have all the disks I need here (need to put the images on floppies when I get home tonight)

1 rescue
1 root
20 install

Can anyone varify this? According to their install guide, this looks right (http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch-rescue-boot#s-features-rescue)
Any pointers, tips or anything else would be helpful in getting this going smoothly

Red Hat user about to apt-get into a new frontier! :D

[Hitokiri_X]

Originally posted by mahdi
I know the floppy works so this should work...anyone have any experiance with this method? If this fails I could try the Ethernet install and put the ISOs on a shared system on my network...

If you have a ethernet connection why not just do a ftp install instead of using so many floppies? I always install Debian via ftp since I don't like using all those floppies or download a big iso.

[Icarus]

Ideally...yes I would like to...right now I'm not sure about the PCMIA network card, I have no idea if it works...or even Linux supported (I am terriable with research, probally explains that C I got in my research class :D)...I know I should of brought it to work today

[scanez]

The easiest way to do it IMHO is using the rescue, root, and 4 driver floppies. Then installing the base over ftp/http. What pcmcia card do you have? If possible, you should try this before using 20 install floppies :)

[Icarus]

Originally posted by scanez
The easiest way to do it IMHO is using the rescue, root, and 4 driver floppies. Then installing the base over ftp/http. What pcmcia card do you have? If possible, you should try this before using 20 install floppies :)
Thats what I've been thinking about this morning...I have no idea what PCMICA card it has (again, I knew I should of brought it in today ;)) so I don't know if it will even work, I hope the general driver will do it...

4 driver floppies?
*>searches the debian site again<*
Oh, here they are for later when I get home (http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/disks-i386/3.0.23-2002-05-21/images-1.44/) :)

If that works good, I should have no problems...I hope, I always have the 20 disks if that doesn't work,
[do I want to pick those up on my way home tonight or should I just cross my fingers? Maybe I can get by with 10 disks and if I have to do the full floppy install I can cycle the disks as I install? crazy I know, but so am I and the rust of us wacky Linux users :p]
Heck, if they are cheap and they have some at the grocery store I can add those to my list!

[Icarus]

This is prooving to be quite tricky....

First off, the thing has 8mb on-board memory and 2 slots full of 8mb chips (24mb, no problem)
problem...either it it bad memory in the slots or the slots are bad. It took me 2 hours to be able to load the root disk because 8mb just doesn't cut it. Once I was able to get the system to see the 16mb I was able to get to the partitioning...then it crapped and rebooted...loosing the 16mb

Second...I don't know if the PCMICA card doesn't work, or if the slots are bad (this thing is 7+ years old) The card is an IBM 'Home and Away' Fax/Modem & Ethernet Credit Card Adapter :eek:
hmmm.....
card "IBM Home and Away Ethernet/Modem"
version "IBM", "Home and Away Credit Card Adapter"
bind "pcnet_cs" to 0, "serial_cs" to 1
umm....

Still chuging alone though...see how far I can get before I am force to get parts working :)

[Icarus]

So it stack dumps halfway through the building of the kernel and modules!!

Oh well, pick up more floppies and try later some time :(

[FoBoT]

i have done it a few times, it is pretty easy

1 root
1 boot
4 device driver
11 base

one thing to keep in mind is that the compression used to create the disks fails if the floppy has the slightest flaw

so you may have to try more than one floppy for each disk until you get a "good" set

it is sorta cool to do even though i don't like floppies

if you want an even easier floppy install, go for FreeBSD, it only needs two floppies on most systems, 4 at most

good luck and have fun! :)

ps, this is in the wrong forum, it belongs in the installation forum -> moving it there ;)

[Icarus]

I'm not sure if I want to mess with any FreeBSD's yet (call me biased :)) but I really wanted to to try out Debian and it having a floppy install made it very appealing to me...


This was suppose to be a
"Hey, it worked...cool!" Thread not a
"NOW what the hell is wrong!" thread :)

Most of the problem might just be the dodgy memory, but after reading some things on these type of laptops off of www.linux-laptop.net ...turns out there are oodels of problems getting these working right (PCMCIA has a few things alone) So maybe I'll try this some more this weekend...while watching Lord of the Rings ;)

[Icarus]

I have WOODY!!

hehe...just wanted to say that :)

I had to take the memory check off in the BIOS, and after a few tries was able to fully install Debian and reboot.
I got a few memory related errors durring the setup but after removing the 16mb and leaving the 8mb on it worked fine...very slow, but fine

Now for my next trick...get this IBM card working so I can make DHCP work...

[Icarus]

My Woody is on-line!

hehe,

Anyone know how large Xfree and a decent GUI is? I only have 400mb left (huge swap 250mb)?

I would like to get a gui but need it small for this thing...

Think Enlightenment is small enough?

[Icarus]

Hmm...X isn't starting, "no screens found"
I hate that error!!
Tried a few config options but no luck as of yet, installing linuxconf now to see if that will help me get this going because XF86Config wasn't installed with XFree :mad:

I REALLY like apt-get!!!

That did no good...linuxconf froze (8mb mem, go figure)
but XF86Config is there...just called xf86config :)

[scanez]

400 mb of space is certainly enough for enlightenment, but 8 mb ram might be a problem. Try fluxbox and/or something smaller like fvwm. Just try out a few, you can always uninstall the ones you don't like with apt :)

[Icarus]

I installed E, and still have plenty of space left after all the X dependencies (250mb available :)) I've order a 16MB memory chip and will get that soon, I just need to get X going, even if it does run slow.

But I'm having some problems just getting it started...

Just when I think I got it...breaks big time :(

X won't start, hangs on a black screen...I try to Alt+F2 or something to get to the consle, but it seems that my keyboard mapping is dogged also...the rescue disk only boots the system I'm stuck :mad:

What are the paramiters I need to throw in with the rescue disk so it doesn't start the init scripts...?

[Icarus]

Ok...fun fun fun

I've reinstalled:rolleyes:
reloaded Xfree server, E and x-windows
Configured X

now where the heck did startx go!!?!

Have to find out what I'm missing here...xf86config should of set it up...hmmm...

[scanez]

startx can be found in the xbase-clients packages.

apt-get install xbase-clients

How did you install xwindows? Just apt-get install xserver-blah?

[Icarus]

Go figure...apt-get didn't install the xbase-clients:rolleyes:

That is where the whole startx comes from, so not having that package is my problem...luckly I still have MY package :D

[Icarus]

Originally posted by scanez
startx can be found in the xbase-clients packages.

apt-get install xbase-clients

How did you install xwindows? Just apt-get install xserver-blah?
Well, on the most part, yes...
I'm tring to remember what ones I did install...
xfree86-common
xfree86-server
enlightenment
x-window-system

anything else should be in here? I do need to keep it light on the most part...
The re-install was a good thing, I trimed the swap down to 150MB so I have a little more space then before :)

[scanez]

Originally posted by mahdi

Well, on the most part, yes...
I'm tring to remember what ones I did install...
xfree86-common
xfree86-server
enlightenment
x-window-system

anything else should be in here? I do need to keep it light on the most part...
The re-install was a good thing, I trimed the swap down to 150MB so I have a little more space then before :)
Hmm...weird. I thought x-window-system installed xbase-clients. Ah well :)

Everything good now?

[Icarus]

Don't know....it's still unpacking the files :p

Remember, it's a 100Mhz w/8mb of RAM :D

Hmmm...I'll have to double check if I did apt x-windows...boy, that would explain A LOT!!!


Yup...I forgot to apt-get x-window-system....whoops! :rolleyes:

[Hitokiri_X]

These are what I usually download when I do a base install and apt-get everything.

xserver-xfree86
xserver-common
xfree86-common
xbase-clients
xfonts-base
xfonts-<fontname>

Then I just run dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 and copy /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc to ~/.xinitrc and edit it.You do not need x-window-system installed to get x running.

[Icarus]

Bah, damn GUI...forget it! :p
I can use the CLi for taking notes in class!
I don't know if I have the refreash rates wrong of using the wrong drivers (can't be the wrong drivers...thats what it is a ct65540 "chips")
Oh well, so in Deb, how do I make it stop trying to load the gui at startup? I've tried the init scripts but can't get the right one to stop it from loading the GUI :p

[Icarus]

Well, got the GUI going, thanks a dude at school last night! We only had it working at 8 bits @ 320x200 but it works :)

He found a great place to get a good Modeline to use...once I get more memory in it I should be able to bump up the res so it's a little more 'functional' but so far it works good

The Modeline calculator can be found at http://xtiming.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/xtiming.pl