Mark Seven Smith wrote: <box freezes during Debian install when time comes to scroll down a list>
Set up a small (50 - 75MB) partition on hda1 with an MS-DOS fdisk and format and make it bootable to MS-DOS (or Win95 Command Prompt only).OMG, I have struggled *so hard* to get away from the tyranny of MICRO$OFT...WILL THE NIGHTMARE NEVER END??? ;-)
Scary, ain't it?
Anyway, I already have a 500 MB partition on the 30-gig drive in the beginning (hdb1) for the root directory of the Debian system, could I use that? I would of course switch the two drives I have, so that I could boot from the second drive (I think I can make the BIOS boot the computer from the second hard drive, I don't recall...) but in any case would the 500MB partition be OK to use for what you suggest?
Yeah, that'll be fine.
Either configure it to access your CD-ROM from DOS,Couldn't I use a Windows 98 BOOT DISK instead? I have one that will access the CD-ROM...
That'll work.
There's gotta be something specific to the default Debian kernel that doesn't get along with your hardware. I don't know how to go about doing it, but it would be interesting to try to boot off a different kernel (say a Redhat CD) and then run the Debian installer.or then boot off the Woody CD to the point where you can Alt-F2 to another virtual terminal and mount the DOS partition.When I boot from the Debian CD (either the Potato CD or the Woody CD), one of the things I cannot do in any way is access the virtual terminals. When I hit <alt>-F2, I get a screen that says something like "Press return to activate this screen" but it doesn't matter. I am already locked up; and none of the keys will work, and I have to power down the computer, and then bring it back up to reboot. There isn't any way that the virtual terminals are an option (I can do it right NOW, from Red Hat, so that feature CAN work on my computer, it just doesn't from the Debian CD).
Yes, before booting Debian. You can copy them via Redhat or MS-DOS or OS/2 or whatever can put the files somewhere onto a local drive that the Debian installer can access.; I suppose you could even store the needed files on a Linux partition, but I think you'd still need to boot off a DOS floppy to run LOADLIN.EXE.Copy from the CD-ROM to that partition all the files you need to boot Linux from DOS and do the base install.Do I copy them before I boot Debian (like from Red Hat), or did I need to do this from MS-DOS for some reason?
Section 6.3.1at http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch-rescue-boot.en.html#s-install-from-dos would be your better choice. You can get there from the link in the last sentence of Section 5.4.2.This'll take 5-15MB (I don't remember exactly). You can figure out what files you need by checking out the HowToInstall pages at www.debian.org (I can give you exact references if you can't find it).Are these the files you mean? http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch-install-methods.en.html#s-file-descs (Sections 5.4.2 through 5.4.4)
I'm not real clear on the boot process. I usually make my first partition the / partition, and make it bootable, but if you have the first one as swap, I'm not sure how you'd set that up. I know some people recommend putting the swap at the front of the disk, but I've never done it myself. I do tell LILO to install into the MBR (the default, I believe), which doesn't usually enter into the partitioning scheme, if that has any relevance.Then start the Linux install from there (via loadlin.exe), and when the installer asks where you want to install the base OS from, specify the DOS partition. After a successful install, you can reclaim that partition for other uses (make it 128, 256, or 512MB and you can convert it to swap space, which supposedly gives you a slight speed advantage to have your swap at the beginning of your disk, or you can move your / partition that that area, etc). This may or may not work, but it should be worth trying.Ah yes--this would be possible...I should make the first partition SWAP space later then, that way I wouldn't have to move my / partition from wherever the install program set it up.This means that I would have to make a /boot partition at the beginning, doesn't it? Or could I simply tell fdisk that I want whatever partition has the / directory that that partition is "bootable"...?
I'm not familiar with ASA, but if it'll fit into your box and you can see the text of the POST (Power On Self Test) routines, it oughtta work. You're right that it may not work with X, but that's down the road a piece.If you have multiple sticks of RAM, swap them around. Shouldn't make a difference, but you're grasping at straws, so try it.GOOD! That's something I did not think of...I will try that right away! :-)Your video card should be okay; still, if you can borrow a different one just long enough to try, that'd be good. If you have a college in the neighborhood, they might have a hardware shop with some old PCI card they'll loan you (or sell you for $3).Would my old, grungy, useless ASA video card work, for text, anyway? What would it affect? Nothing, I would guess, as long as I didn't configure X with it...
Yes. In order to use certain features, say a sound card or an ethernet card or PPP, etc, the kernel has to be configured to work with that feature. This can be compiled into the kernel monolithically, or plugged in or removed as needed as a module. A very rough analogy would be a home stereo system; one system might have the CD player and the tape deck and the FM stereo all integrated into one box (the monolithic kernel); another system might have separate components, with the central amp as the kernel and the tape and CD decks and the tuner as "modules". Either method works; it's just that one method works better for Joe Tinkerwithit and the other works better for Jimmy Keepitsimple.You can also bypass installing any modules during the install; you can always install them later after the base install.That's another thing I was wondering: can I skip installing modules all together? What would be the problem with that? This doesn't refer to the built-in abilities of the kernel, does it?What are these "modules", anyway? Are they the same as the drivers that one manipulates with insmod, lsmod and modprobe?
You can manually load and unload modules with the insmod and rmmod commands. modprobe is roughly the same as insmod, but instead of trying to load a single module that you specify, it tries to load that module, and if that module requires other modules to be loaded first, it goes and tries to load those modules also. For example, let's say you need to load a module called naptime, but it requires the modules getinpajamas and crawlinbed. If you try to "insmod naptime", it'll complain that it can't load, whereas if you "modprobe naptime", it'll automatically, behind the scenes, do the equivalent of "insmod getinpajamas" followed by "insmod crawlinbed" followed by "insmod naptime". The lsmod command will list the modules that are currently loaded, and the rmmod command will unload (remove) the specified module.
What would I do, after I install Debian, to "install them later"? Is there an application in Debian that I should run? (I'm still learning about these things, and I'm not too good with getting things to work automatically, if they don't work automatically in the first place, like USB and printers.)The standard stuff (at least in more recent versions of Debian) will autoload when they're needed. For example, if the kernel has been compiled with support for a certain ethernet NIC, but as a module, when you first boot up, the kernel will be smaller than if the support had been built in monolithically. When the network access is "turned on" (usually by a startup script in /etc/init.d), the module "driver" is automatically loaded from disk and plugged into the kernel, thereby making the kernel larger, but more functional. Later, you could unplug the module if you no longer need the networking functionality, and thereby shrink down the kernel. Modules can be useful when first installing hardware, because you can tinker with the settings ("Okay, the sound card doesn't work with IRQ 5, let's try IRQ7") without recompiling the kernel/rebooting with every change. They're also useful for features you need only rarely. Otherwise, I tend to compile the option in, but the next guy will tell you he only uses modules. Take your pick.
Other stuff you can modprobe/insmod. I think there may be some way to run the installer's module selection routine after the system is installed, but I don't remember for sure.
Thank you very, very much for your ideas; I feel that I am getting very close to getting Debian up & running on my system! I have been wanting it for a very long time...--Mark VII pampaluz@home.com