Re: Problems installing amd64 with Supermicro motherboard
On Fri, 11 Apr 2008, Francesco Pietra wrote:
No success in entering BIOS. It seems that the "Intel(R) Boot Agent"
should be eliminated, to get free of their PXE system. Does anyone know
how to throw this agent away with Linux? The old amd64 installation is
recognized on the new system. Though the original installation was for a
dual socket machine, all new 875 CPUs are recognized by
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
so that I can expect to be able to clean things with the previous Debian
amd64 installation, edit BIOS, and then reinstalling amd64 in order that
all new hardware is properly taken into account.
What Intel suggests to eliminate their Boot Agent is to download a DOS
program (subjected to property restrictions; curiously so because I want
to get free of their intruding program, which let me think that
individuals are not properly defended by the laws against intruders). DOS
is something I am not familiar with and I don't want to get involved in.
If not else I can't imagine how to get DOS on my amd64 installation. I am
already irritated enough that to submit a letter to the principal journal
of chemistry, JACS, one should have to deal with their Visual Basic
macros, which require getting involved with Microsoft. I am also irritated
by the Supermicro motherboard having a large portion dedicated to
Microsoft to let them do raids, while I can better solve the problem with
a software raid.
I have now submitted the problem to Supermicro Europe but I expect the
same answer I had a couple of years ago from Tyan Europe: "We do not
answer questions related to Debian Linux", although even then the problem
was not such related.
Ciao Francesco.
A possible way around your problem, even if it will not remove the intel
blob, could be the following. Since you can boot in a debian system, you can
use it to do a fresh install as well. Use the "debootstrap" utility
(contained in the "debootstrap" package) to do a fresh install. You just
need a working debian system, with a working internet connection, and the
target file systems mounted. The only problem is if you want to reinstall on
top of your existing (and working) system. In that case, you may do it in
two steps: first install just a base system + debootstrap in a small
partition (e.g. the old swap partition would do); then reboot in that small
partition and use it to clean up the old system and then start a fresh
install using debootstrap again. It sounds long, but if you have a fast
internet connection it will actually require a handful of minutes.
Ciao
Giacomo
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Giacomo Mulas <gmulas@ca.astro.it>
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