debian install? yea, right!

[TheLinuxDuck]

Ok. I am a long time redhat user who switched to slackware about 3-4 months ago. I have truely and thoroughly enjoyed slack. But, I decided, since I haven't had a linux partition for a month, that I would d/l and try out debian, since so many of you rave on apt-get.

Well, debian doesn't like me.

On two different computers, debian's iso (which I burned to cd) would boot just fine, but when it came time to load linux, it would start to load the kernel, then reset my machine.

I tried this on two independent machines, one a p3-450 w 256 meg-o-ram. The other a p200 w 128 meg-o-ram.

Any ideas?

[ifred]

This may seem like a lot of tedious work but you could try going to the Debian website, look up the instructions on how to make a base floppy install, use the 11-14 floppies to make a base system install and then install the remainder of the system using apt-get over the internet. I believe this is the ftp site where you can get the floppy images: http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian/dists/Debian2.2r2/main/disks-i386/current/images-1.44/
Good luck.

[Skroob]

Originally posted by ifred:
This may seem like a lot of tedious work but you could try going to the Debian website, look up the instructions on how to make a base floppy install, use the 11-14 floppies to make a base system install and then install the remainder of the system using apt-get over the internet. I believe this is the ftp site where you can get the floppy images: [URL=http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian/dists/Debian2.2r2/main/disks-i386/current/images-1.44/]http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian/dists/Debian2.2r2/main/disks-i386/current/images-1.44/[/ URL]
Good luck.

If you are sure you will be able to get your network card working during the install then you can just download rescue, root, and the driver disks. Then download the base install over the net which is much easier than messing with all of the floppies.

[ClearNinja]

I wouldnt try debian just for apt-get if you like slackware stay with it. Doesnt X_console have a script like apt-get that updates slackware?

[TheLinuxDuck]

I did d/l the files and stuff needed to do a floopy based install, but I don't see why I should have to resort to that. I've got a perfectly good CD drive that has booted and installed two other distros.

I wasn't totally going to debian just for apt-get, but I was wanting to see how easy it was to use.. I just wanted to have a comparison for debian so I could have the knowledge of how it works, since not every distro works exactly the same..

I supposed I can try some bios tweaks to see if there's anything else I can adjust.. maybe turn off pnp OS (if it's even set).

I also tried to install free-bsd.. which I managed to install, but was totally lost on how things work on it. It's way different that redhat or slack. :)

Skroob:

I've already got the rescue, boot, and drivers disks as well as all the floppy base files, and the big base file.. methinks I'll go that route.. I really don't wanna mess with floopies if I don't have to..

Thanks for the insight peoples! :)

[ClearNinja]

I would go ahead and make the boot and root disks and then boot up with them and then specify to get the files off the cdrom. See if that works that way. :)

[rod]

Hey Duck
If the other distros are installing ok,
maybe you have a bad download or burn of the iso. Debian certainly is not that different than the other distros. They all use the same
kernel.

I would try a reburn of the iso.

Regards,
Rod

[n2linux]

If you are sure you will be able to get your network card working during the install then you can just download rescue, root, and the driver disks. Then download the base install over the net which is much easier than messing with all of the floppies.

Anyone willing to give me a detailed method of doing this. I'm planning to give debian a try this weekend but I can only find 4 formatted floppies laying around here (no cd-burner with me either :( )

--edit--
Wait, what I really meant to say...how can I download the root, rescue, and driver files onto a seperate (FAT32 partition) and then install debian onto another partition?

[ 19 February 2001: Message edited by: n2linux ]

[vvx]

I've never heard of anything like that..

[FyberOptyx]

You don't even need floppies. If you have a FAT partition you can install debian straight from that.
Check out the instructions at debian's site.
I didn't even have a floppy drive when installing it.

[ 19 February 2001: Message edited by: FyberOptyx ]

[n2linux]

FyberOptyx,

I would greatly appreciate it if you could post a link of those instructions.

Thanks

[FyberOptyx]

This is where I started
Install instructions (http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/install.en.html)
;)