Re: Debian potato can't boot Gericom Webboy (RH and Suse can)
At 18:06 +0200 4/26/01, Stefan Kluth wrote:
>Hi,
>
>a collegue got a Gericom Webboy (a SIS chipset based laptop, see
>e.g. http://mobilix.org/gericom_webboy_e.html ) and wanted Linux on it. I
>helpfully suggested Debian. We got the CDs from linuxiso.org
>(2.2_rev2) and tried.
>
>None of the 3 CDs will boot. They either don't show a display, which may
>be cured by vga=791, and always hang after the "md" module has printed its
>crap about not finding a RAID SCSI card.
>
>Naturally we assumed that the md module was at fault, so I compiled a
>Debian kernel like the standard installer kernel, but with the md stuff
>taken out. Doesn't help, unfortunately. I also tried an old potato 2.2
>kernel (2.2.14), but with no luck.
>
>The machine booted fine with RH 6.2 and 7.1 and with a recent Suse
>install CD.
>
>I then tried to replace the kernel on a boot (rescue) floppy by a RH
>kernel. This succesfully booted and started dbootstrap. However,
>dbootstrap didn't find the Debian base system on the Debian CD 1 (I
>presume this was the punishment for using a RH kernel :;).
>
>I am a bit emberassed now and would appreciate some help.
>
I don't know what your problem is, but I recommend the installation manual.
It could be that the webboy has very exotic hardware,
such as a rare CD-rom player. So you should make your own kernel.
<piece_of_chapter_nine>
Installing Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 For Intel x86
Chapter 9 Technical Information on the Boot Floppies
9.1 Source Code
The boot-floppies package contains all of the source code and documentation
for the installation floppies.
9.2 Rescue Floppy
The Rescue Floppy has an Ext2 filesystem (or a FAT filesystem, depending on
your architecture), and you should be able to access it from anything
else that can mount Ext2 or FAT disks. The Linux kernel is in the file
linux. The file root.bin is a gzip-compressed disk image of a 1.4MB Minix or
Ext2 filesystem, and will be loaded into the RAM disk and used as the root
filesystem.
9.3 Replacing the Rescue Floppy Kernel
If you find it necessary to replace the kernel on the Rescue Floppy, you
must configure your new kernel with these features linked in, not in
loadable
modules:
</piece_of_chapter_nine>
Hope it helps
Groet Geert Stappers
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