Re: Fwd: Debian Won't Install! (System Locks Up)
Heh.
I've been offline all this time; I still *CRINGE* at the
thought of what I did to my Red Hat installation, so I
won't go into it (YIKES!) but I was stuck with having to
get Debian up & running--I tried everything! But nothing
worked. So, I put in an old Cirrus Logic card, with a
whole megabyte of video RAM (the thing makes weird blotches
on the screen when I move the mouse over title bars and
such, really a pain, something's damaged on the card), so
now I am going to be stuck with this card for now with
Debian.
I tried to get online with Debian, but I cannot. I need to
learn a lot more about this (I am using a cable modem;
yeah, @home is gone but my cable company is still keeping
things going for now)...right now, I am running a
freshly-installed Red Hat 7.1, just to get my Email and
talk to this list!
I am going to find a way to trade this card in with some
computer store (Computer Depot and others take trade-ins)
but I want to know: what's a good video card that WORKS
WELL WITH DEBIAN? I want 64 megs of video RAM, I figure;
and to *hopefully* spend around $50+ dollars (I'll go to
$100-$120 or so for a good all-around card if it will GIVE
ME NO MORE VIDEO HARDWARE PAINS!!! :-)
So: any ideas? Yes, I know there is a hardware
compatibility list, but I look at it, and I don't know what
I am looking at, or for...I've had no luck with eBay; I
guess I'm not fast enough placing a last-minute bid, or
something.
Anyway, thanks in advance (and all the advice in the Email
I just received is well taken; I will read and use and
learn it all, thanks! :-)
Best,
--Mark Seven Smith
pampaluz@home.com
On Thursday 13 December 2001 10:02 pm, you wrote:
> Mark Seven Smith wrote:
>
> <box freezes during Debian install when time comes to
> scroll down a list>
>
> >>Set up a small (50 - 75MB) partition on hda1 with an
> >>MS-DOS fdisk and format and make it bootable to MS-DOS
> >>(or Win95 Command Prompt only).
> >
> >OMG, I have struggled *so hard* to get away from the
> >tyranny of MICRO$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.
>
> >>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).
>
> 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.
>
> >>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?
>
> 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.
>
> >>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-me
> >thods.en.html#s-file-descs (Sections 5.4.2 through
> > 5.4.4)
>
> 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.
>
> >>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 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.
>
> >>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...
>
> 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.
>
> >>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?
>
> 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 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
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