Re: Installing on old computers (WAS: Re: Time to rewrite dpkg)
Please cc the mailing-list replies to me, I'm not (yet anyway) in the
debian-boot-list.
>> On a computer without CD-ROM one has to start by
>> disk, but that's ok.
> Do you mean floppy, or the hard-disk option?
Floppy.
>> Then you get the option of NFS, but not FTP!
> Huh? Sure... use the apt method.
...
> I assume, actually, you're talking about installing base. In this
> case, I suggest you make a little DOS area on the computer you are
> installing, and put base2_1.tgz on there (installing base from
> harddisk option).
I might have been more clear, yes..
First, I mean that it would be easier to install base from ftp than
from floppies, in this case (with windows-machines in the rest of the
local net).
>> disappearing! On Red Hat, you can use one disk to get the
>> ftp opportunity, and symlinks wont destroy it! So, what
>> could I tell him, to grab each package by hand???
> No, use the apt installation option.
Secondly.. We tried using apt towards the cd-rom that was mounted on
a win98 with ftp-server. The problem is that windows doesn't catch
the symlinks.
This gives us two problems:
1. The symlinks from dists/main and dists/stable -> dists/slink
disappear, they are just empty files. That problem wasn't that hard
to avoid by giving apt the lines with "... slink main contrib"
instead of "... stable main contrib".
2. The larger problem is when you come to grabbing packages that are
in "binary-all". They are mapped from the subdirectory of
"binary-i386" with a symlink to the same directory in "binary-all".
When windows reads this, it returns an empty file instead of the
corresponding file in "binary-all". That only causes apt to
rightfully claim it's a corrupt package.
I think it's a nice and clean solution, these symbolic links. They
do, unfortunately, produce some problems on some systems. This
unfortunately includes my own. I burned these cd's at work to take
home and upgrade and install on some.. But my debian system wont read
them well, a lot of lost interrupts and so (I guess the driver for my
"SAMSUNG CD-ROM SCR-2431" isn't ready yet). My win95 does read them
without any problem, except for the symlinks. So when I copied them
to a vfat to use in debian, apt wouldn't do it!
My cd-problem is strange, but I guess it's not for this list... A
bought cd-set of debian 2.0 worked without problems....
I think that CD-sets for a special platform, such as i386, maybe
could be made with the binary-all-files placed directly in the
binary-i386 (or similar for other platforms) to avoid the second
problem.
The first problem, I guess could be avoided if the real directory
would be the "dists/stable", and "dists/slink" and "dists/main" would
be symlinks. I realize that this maybe could add some extra effort
for creating the iso's, but it should be worth it.
The base-installing-problem.. Shouln't it be feasible to get an
ftp-option for installing base, just as you get nfs, floppy etc? Red
hat has it, and we could certainly do better than that! :-)
.../EOF
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