Bug#120950: 120950
Hi. Christoph. Sorry for looooooong delay.
(I don't subscribe debian-boot currently due to short of time.
Just reading the report on the web archive now.)
> Debian Bug report logs - #120950
> Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2001 18:15:38 +0100
> From: Christoph Berg <cb@heim-d.uni-sb.de>
> Cc: mjung@mpi-sb.mpg.de
> Subject: USB boot-floppies
> Message-ID: <20011124181538.A1161@fermi.stw.stud.uni-saarland.de>
> Package: boot-floppies
> Version: potato
>
> Bug #1: There is no way to install Debian via a USB floppy drive.
I have one, at least it works for me, and for some others.
Tested Hardwares are:
IBM ThinkPad i-1200 (1161-41J) with USB FDD (OEM from TEAC)
CASIO FIVA MPC-206VL
SONY VAIO SR9M/K
I don't know if this will work for you, but I think
it is worth to try.
> I have a Sony notebook (PCG-C1VE) with external USB floppy (and NO
> built-in CD drive). When using the potato boot floppies, the kernel is
> loaded without any problems from the rescue floppy. However, it will
> prompt for the root disk, which in turn it will not find, because the
> USB floppy is not available at that time.
I've created a lilo floppy with a customized 2.4.16 kernel.
It can load the compressed root image from the first SCSI disk
/dev/sda. USB floppy drive appears as that device.
> Subject: Re: Bug#120950: USB boot-floppies
> Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 10:31:49 +0000
> From: Philip Blundell <philb@gnu.org>
> Message-Id: <E167wa2-0004zf-00@kc.cam.armlinux.org>
> In message <20011125020722.A30723@zombie.inka.de>, Eduard Bloch writes:
> >Should we support them? And when, how? I can imagine to hack the kernel
> >so it looks on /dev/fd0, then on listed devices for the root image. In
> >addition, there should be support in dbootstrap so the drives are (for
> >example) linked to /dev/fd0 or so.
>
> I'm pretty sure USB floppies (a la Vaio) present themselves as SCSI disks
> as well.
Yes. I can use my external USB floppy drive as /dev/sda.
> I guess such a kernel hack wouldn't be too difficult, and it certainly
> should solve the problem.
I've put the image file of lilo-kernel-floppy as
http://www.debian.or.jp/~sano/usbfdboot/usbfdboot-2-4-16-resc-image.bin
a readme.txt and used patches are also in
http://www.debian.or.jp/~sano/usbfdboot/
So, Christoph, if you can, let's try it.
Just get the image, and write it on a normal 1440 floppy
using dd under Linux or rawritewin on Windows.
(rawritewin should be available from ftp.debian.org/tools/,
check the README file and get rwwtwin.zip and diskio.zip.)
> The changes needed in the rest of boot-floppies would be trivial,
> basically just making sure that /dev/sdX appears in dbootstrap's list
> of devices.
> On the other hand, I'm not sure that we want to build USB and SCSI into
> the standard kernel images just to make this work.
> It might be better to forget about supporting it in boot-floppies
> and wait for debian-installer.
I've used normal potato root and base floppies.
Just take care that "Module Configuration Task" does
have no meaning when you use the customized 2.4 kernel.
So do nothing on that task, go next stage simply.
Other tasks can be done normally, I think.
Regards.
--
Taketoshi Sano: <sano@debian.org>,<sano@debian.or.jp>,<kgh12351@nifty.ne.jp>
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