Problem with net install of Woody

["Frédéric" BOITEUX <fboiteux@prosodie.com>]

	Hello,

  [ I'm new on the list, I hope I'll be clear and in topic ! ]

  I've a problem trying to install a Debian Woody on an industrial PC via the network ;
Here is the description :

* I've an industrial PC (pentium III), without floppy, CDROM, and a blank hard drive.
I want to install a Debian system, and as the Woody is released :-)), i've looked
the installation manual, and carefully read the network install paragraphs !

* This PC has two network interfaces, Intel PRO 100B, with a bios capable of BOOTP & DHCP,
via the 3com Lanworks' bios, called MBA (v4.31).

* I've set up a DHCP server, and downloaded the tftpboot.img
  (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-i386/current/idepci/tftpboot.img),
  as described in the manual (http://www.fr.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch-appendix.fr.html#s-file-descs).

* at the first tries, the MBA network boot loader refuse to load any of the different flavors
  of the tftpboot.img, telling me they are too big for the 640Ko available :-((   [The PC has 256Mo] ;
  After some researches (notably in http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=140579&repeatmerged=yes),
  I've found a program on the Linux Terminal Server Project, called imggen, to let
  the LanWorks MBA bios load correctly a boot image, and then the load of tftpboot.img
  works (at least for compact and idepci flavors)

* But the next problem arise, with the following messages :

loading ......

Uncompressing Linux...

invalid compressed format (err=1)

-- System halted


* I've tried to load the linux.bin floppy image instead of tftpboot.img (after modifying it by imggen),
  and here the kernel boots correctly (with an image of a penguin drinking a beer ;-),
  stopping when trying to load the root image (it's normal...).


And now my questions (!!) :

- does anyone have an idea why the tftpboot.img fails to work ? I'd like to learn
  how this image is built, and perhaps how to modify it to work on my PC.

- As seen in the bug #140579 report, it seems there is a lack of testers of LAN boot
  for the x86 platform, perhaps I can help to test in my case ?

- where can I read info about the boot process (how to give the root image, how to use initrd, etc.) ?

	Thanks for any clue,

	Fred.

-- 
Frédéric Boiteux  -  Calistel


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