Some remarks about the Debian-2.1 installation
Martin Ostermann writes:
> Hi,
>
> I installed Slink yesterday on my XL-300. I did this from an CD set
> burned from the official Debian-CD images. Some things I noticed:
>
> * The Install Guide (install/install.html) suggests that booting
> directly from CD is the easiest thing if it is supported by the
> system -- I believe this is not true. I found the correct descrition
> in the README of /dists/slink/../98-03-05, which isn't that easy
> to find.
The doc is still too Intel-centric, CDROM installation on Alpha should
be easy as soon as it is correctly documented which is unfortunately
not yet the case.
>
> * I would have expected the contents of the above directory also in
> /boot, but there was no root, recsue, etc images.
/dists/stable/main/disks-<arch>/current is where you always find the
install stuff for every arch, I agree it would be a good to put a
symlink of it into /boot/ (altough booting and installing are two
different concepts). Will do that in the future.
> * Booting without floppies doesn't seems possible, though the manual
> suggests it. I booted linload, MILO and the kernel from CD, but I
> needed to make a root floppy. I recall that some days ago it was
> mentioned on this list to patch the kernel in a way that would make
> it possible to load an ordinary file as a ramdisk image. If this is
> true, it isn't easily accessible as I havn't found this on the CDs.
>
> If it would be possible, /dists/slinkg ... /98-03-05/root1440.img
> isn't exactly in easy to remember name.
The README you mentioned is telling to pass the following args to the
kernel to boot with or without flooppies:
root=/dev/<root-device> load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=
That is valid even when booting from CD (though prompt_ramdisk is
superfluous then)., in this case:
with an SCSI CDROM:
root=/dev/scd0 load_ramdisk=1
with an IDE-CDROM:
root=/dev/hd[bcd] load_ramdisk=1
The Cdrom is specially created with knowlegde of where to find the
root image in its superblock. So you do not need to specify the path
explicitely, just tell the device.
>
> * It should be stated more clearly, that the path entries in the
> AlphaBIOS boot menu require backslashes. Also, it should be noted
> that only the error message of the OS boot path can be ignored, not
> the one about the loader entry.
Ok thanks, will correct that.
> Well, I don't want to go into the non-Alpha specific issues, but I was
> suprised to see two emacs versions installed as part of a standard
> profile (scientific workstation).
And even three if you count xemacs, I do not know the rationale for
having 2 emacs.
>
> I went to sleep after the installation, so I cannot comment on other
> issues right now.
Thanks a lot for the feedback.
The documentation is still very incomplete, sorry for that.
Loic
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