Re: i386 1.44 disks
James Bromberger <james@rcpt.to> writes:
> I have been installing a system tonight using the 2.2.4-2000-01-03 i386
> 1.44 MB disks (yep, all 15 of them! ;) ) and I wanted to let you know of
> my experiences. If it sounds like I am being a pain, I apologise, and wish
> merely to toss some thoughts into the ring.
Not at all. Sorry it took us so long to get to you.
> Getting to the inital Installation Main Menu is relatively straight forward
> and not too scary. Partitioning drives looks like it is detailed enough for
> a long time sys admin, but new users would easily be scared of it. Perhaps
> a simple explanation that I need a linux partition (and why ext2?) and
> what this whole swap drive is (what, swap it with another computer?). ;)
Well, I'm trying to *reduce* the prompting, not add to it. At most,
perhaps, there should be a request that the use 'read the fine
manual', eh?
> The actual mkfs screen could scare new users (inodes, etc? huh?), and perhaps
> the option to show merely a 'percent done' screen would make this more
> novice friendly.
The boot-floppies is not the business of re-inventing the wheel. Thus
we did not write mke2fs nor are we in a position where we can change
it. Our only options are to run it as is, or run it with the 'q'
option, which completely suppresses all output.
> Plus (and I'll admit to this) a note when /dev/hda1 is larger than 1 GB
> about the whole lilo and large disks thing (since Lilo is the default). ;(
Lilo can boot > 1GB nowadays, I think.
> Anyway, the main problem I had was trying to get my ethernet card loaded.
> Its a standard ISA ne2k. However, I am getting unresolved symbols with all
> the ne* drivers. It would even be nice if the ne2k card were included as
> part of the base disk (since ne2k/ne2k-pci are a sort of very common
> garden-variety 'i think I need to get an ethernet card' kind of card).
I believe this is fixed in the 2.2.14 kernel-based boot-floppies,
2.2.5 or better (2.2.6 is in Incoming).
If you see this kinda stuff, kindly be sure a bug is filed ont he
right kernel-image-* package (see the rescue screen for the
kernel-image version).
> Having ethernet access ASAP
> (or plip, with notes on what it is and how it works) would be very cool.
> BTW, plip also has unresolved symbols.
The compact flavor is for this purpose. Have you tried that with
newer-vintage boot-floppies?
> The blue screens with the dist name are nice -- can we get a debian
> logo in there (the smoke ring, if thats what it is)?
I dunno... maybe, if someone actually does it.
> Is blue the best colour nto use? I know blue screens make me shudder
> since I also admin some NT machines (take pity on me!).
Heh... I believe its the right color, notwithstanding MS's efforts to
associate it with evil things.
--
.....Adam Di Carlo....adam@onShore.com.....<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>
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