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Re: Loopback device



On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 03:55:26PM +0000, Da-Breegster at BFDB wrote:
> Hi, I'm a first timer trying to install Woody 3.0 r2. Somebody else burnt 
> the installation CDs for me. My hardware is rather old, its a used system 
> originally made by Austin Computer Systems. The CD-ROM drive is old too. I 

Okay, it is old and you want to use it.

> booted up with the default options (I just pressed enter at the prompt) and 
> proceeded with the installation. All was well until I reached the "Install 
> device drivers" step. I chose to install from CD-ROM because it recommended 
> that. I had CD-ROM 1 in the drive. It was on the "Installing drivers from 
> /instmnt/dists/woody/long_path_name/drivers.tgz..." screen for a while, so I 
> switched to virtual terminal 3 to see the log. The last two entries were:
> loop: can't get info on device
> dev/loop0: no such device or address
> I switched to terminal 2, the shell. I used df to see if the disk was being 
> written to. It wasn't. I rebooted and tried this several more times. Every 
> time it failed.

Could it be that you are impatient?
That you abort too early?
After all the drivers.tgz is a very large file
end it takes time to process it, especially on old (old equals slow) hardware.


> I researched the loopback device and found out that it's used to mount the 
> CD-ROM or something. I'm a first timer with Linux, so I'm not sure what to 
> do. Maybe the loopback device wasn't being compiled or something? Should I 
> try another CD set or use floppies to load the drivers? If so, where do I 
> get the floppy images at?

To be honest, I have no idea where a loopback device is needed
for unpacking a .tgz file.
That you don't see any writing to disk
could be that it is still doing the decompress (gunzip).


> Please give me advice on what to do. Thank you!
My advice is to start an installation again
and give the old computer time to process the large file.
Give it a night or an other long time.

At least state in your follow-up messages
after how many hours you aborted the process.

> I can be reached at dabreegster@hotmail.com or over AIM. My screen name is 
> DaBreegster. Thanks!

You wrote to a mailinglist. That is community based.
It is about give and share.
Join the mailinglist for the answers. (or visit the archive)
I have no reason to write you a private E-mail nor join AIM.

> 
> _________________________________________________________________
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Cheers
Geert Stappers
-- 
Pay for you E-mail and enjoy the Freedom of the last line :-)



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