Re: Hello! from a newbie+ problems with debian for amd64+can't boot debian for i386 on amd64 from cd+can't extract sbm.bin from cd
On Sun, Nov 27, 2005 at 10:19:14PM +0100, Martin Baldan wrote:
> Hello everyone!
>
> I've been wanting gradually move to linux for years, but was afraid because,
> due to academic requierements (specific applications I *must* use), I still
> need to have winXP installed on my computer for some time to come. I tried
> dual boot with Suse and it was more or less ok, but I preferred two
> independent hard drives. One reason is that Debian was the distribution I
> most looked forward to trying, but I had heard that partitions, dual boot
> and several other issues could be tricky. I've recently bought a new
> computer, and decided it was the time to put my scheme into practice. I felt
> adventurous, so I also decided to move from intel and give amd a try :D
>
> My computer:
>
> processor: AMD Athlon 3500
>
> motherboard: DFI NF4 infinity
>
> graphics card: ATI Radeon X300 SE
>
> I Can give more details about the following, if needed:
>
> Two hard disks mounted on mobile racks
>
> cd/dvd reader
>
> cd/dvd writer
>
> floppy disk unit
>
>
> My problems:
>
> I've downloaded both the unofficial Debian net installation cd iso image for
> AMD64 and the official Debian 3.1 (Sarge) net installation for i386 (I've
> read it works also on AMD64) and I've burnt the cd's.
>
> I had no major problems to istall Debian for amd64, except that some
> packages were missing and the like, but some crucial features fail to work
> (at least under the Gnome GUI). For instance I can't add users (that is, I
> can do it from bash but not from Gnome). I'm totally new to linux, so I'm
> lost if I must use the command line for everything.
I doubt there is any difference in that gnome stuff in i386 versus
amd64. There certainly shouldn't be. It is qutie likely gnome's user
manager just doesn't do the right thing for debian. Maybe it does the
right thing on other distributions. Personally I can't imagine adding
users any other way than using adduser. Besides to use a gui tool I
would have to run X as root and I certainly won't do that.
> So I decided to try the official Debian Sarge for i386, to see if it works
> on my amd computer. The problem is that my BIOS won't boot from the CD (but
> it DID boot from the unofficial cd !!). I've read that the reason may be
> that some old BIOS (old?? Ha! :P ) can't read isolinux files. The
> sollution, if I got it right, is to open the iso image, find the "sbm.bin" file
> and copy it to a floppy disk, then boot with both the floppy disk and the cd
> in my computer.
The boot code should be the same on the amd64 and i386 (other than
having to specify linux26 when booting the i386 cd to get the 2.6
kernel whereas amd64 only has 2.6 kernel). Maybe you burned the i386 cd
incorrectly.
> The file is there, I can see it, BUT when I sellect this file and clik
> "extract" a message appears saying that I have no permission to extract the
> file... but hey, I've entered as root, how come I have no permission to do
> that? (I have a screenshot if anyone wants to see it)
I have no idea what you are trying to do here.
> My questions:
>
> 1) Why don't I have permission to extract the "sbm.bin" file? How can I solve
> that?
>
> 2) I there another way to install Sarge for i-386 that works in my computer,
> apart from booting from the installation cd?
>
> 3) How can I use kde instead of Gnome as a GUI? (some say it works better)
Well both gdm and kdm allow you to select the session type when logging
into X, at least if the particular type you want is installed. You can
do apt-get install kde kdm, for example.
> Again, my kindest greetings to everyone, sorry for every piece of missing
> information or dumb questions.
Len Sorensen
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