Re: Going round in circles [Installation]

[Stefan Schroepfer <scr@iis.fhg.de>]

Richard Heycock wrote:
> 
> I am trying to install debian on an Alpha XL300 [...]

> [...] as I do not have a working floppy drive.

To boot from hard disk into the installation (using ARC/Milo)
the following procedure worked for me:

Create a small ext2fs partition for the purpose of booting
into the installation (a few MB are sufficient).

Copy the kernel image ("linux") to the root directory of
the ext2fs partition. Extract root.tar.gz into the same
directory and move all files from debian-alpha-root dir
to the root directory of this partition (leaving
debian-alpha-root empty).

Now either choose to set OSLOADOPTIONS in your newly created
ARC boot selection to `boot <partition>:/linux root=<partition>´
or to type this command directly at the milo prompt (of course
you have to replace <partition> by the one you actually use
for this purpose).

Good luck,
Stefan Schroepfer