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Re: Boot floppies of RC1 broken for VAIO laptop



The solution to the devmapper issue was simple:

modprobe dm-mod

(that might have helped even with the sarge install discs).


For the poor owners of laptops with usbfloppies and without bootable cdrom, 
the pxe-on-a-disk method will help a lot to get etch installed. Can that be 
documented in the installation manual for etch?

Here are my notes:

Download the PXE-on-a disk image:

PXE-on-a-disk:
ftp://ftp.scyld.com/private/jlehan/pxe-on-a-disk.html

Get pxe-on-a-disk.tar.bz2 and extract it.

Copy the pxe image on a floppy:
dd if=pxe-on-a-disk.floppy of=/dev/fd0 ; sync

Install an tftp server
silverboxy:/opt# apt-get install tftpd-hpa

(automatically adds to /etc/inet.d
tftp           dgram   udp     wait    
root  /usr/sbin/in.tftpd /usr/sbin/in.tftpd -s /var/lib/tftpboot
)

Populate the tftpboot directory with the appropriate debian-installer files:

wget 
http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-i386/rc1/images/netboot/netboot.tar.gz

cd /var/lib/tftpboot
tar xvfz <dir to netboot>/netboot.tar.gz


Add lines in dhcpd.conf (of a running dhcp server)

/etc/dhcpd.conf: add one line for host topsi

host topsi {
  filename "/pxelinux.0"; # for pxe boot
  hardware ethernet 08:00:46:0c:b2:b2;
  fixed-address 192.168.1.99;
  server-name "silverboxy";
  option host-name "topsi";
}

Booting the laptop from the pxe floppy should boot the laptop with the
debian installer.


Thanks,
Rainer

Am Montag, 4. Dezember 2006 14:20 schrieb Rainer Dorsch:
> Hi Geert,
>
> booting into the etch installer works very well this way. Thus I have the
> laptop now up with a
>
> topsi:~# uname -a
> Linux topsi 2.6.17-2-486 #1 Wed Sep 13 15:56:30 UTC 2006 i686 GNU/Linux
> topsi:~#
>
> kernel from the debian installer for etch. The laptop has etch installed,
> but grub/lilo are not setup correctly.
>
> When I run lilo (which worked before), I get:
>
>
> topsi:~# lilo
> /proc/misc: No entry for device-mapper found
> Is device-mapper driver missing from kernel?
> /dev/mapper/control: open failed: No such device
> Failure to communicate with kernel device-mapper driver.
> /proc/misc: No entry for device-mapper found
> Is device-mapper driver missing from kernel?
> /dev/mapper/control: open failed: No such device
> Failure to communicate with kernel device-mapper driver.
> Incompatible libdevmapper 1.02.08 (2006-07-17)(compat) and kernel driver
> Added Linux *
> Fatal: open /vmlinuz.old: No such file or directory
> topsi:~#
>
> grub runs probably on a similar issue:
>
>
> topsi:~# grub-install /dev/hda
> /dev/hda does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.
> topsi:~#
>
> I am wondering, if the kernel on the etch d-i does not include the
> device-mapper (?). And if yes, if the d-i grub also runs without device
> mapper...
>
> Does that make any sense?
>
> Could I copy the boot directory of the laptop to the bootp server and boot
> the regular etch kernel from there?
>
> Thanks,
> Rainer
>
> Am Sonntag, 3. Dezember 2006 18:18 schrieb Geert Stappers:
> > Op 02-12-2006 om 18:36 schreef Rainer Dorsch:
> > > Hmm....good point, but I would be surprised, if booting from an usb
> > > stick would work. It explicitly says in the BIOS floppy, there is no
> > > usb stick option. I would be surprised, if an usb stick and a floppy
> > > image look identical for the laptop (except the capacity).
> > >
> > > PXE does not work either. The vaio can boot from (USB) floppy drive,
> > > (expensive bootable Sony) ATAPI CDDRIVE, hdd.
> >
> > To get PXE working, boot from a floppy from the etherboot project,
> > or the universal one at
> > ftp://ftp.scyld.com/private/jlehan/pxe-on-a-disk.html
> >
> >
> > HtH
> > GSt
>
> --
> Rainer Dorsch
> Alzentalstr. 28
> D-71083 Herrenberg
> 07032-919495
> jabber: rdorsch@jabber.org
> GPG Fingerprint: 5966 C54C 2B3C 42CC 1F4F  8F59 E3A8 C538 7519 141E
> Full GPG key: http://pgp.mit.edu/

-- 
Rainer Dorsch
Alzentalstr. 28
D-71083 Herrenberg
07032-919495
jabber: rdorsch@jabber.org
GPG Fingerprint: 5966 C54C 2B3C 42CC 1F4F  8F59 E3A8 C538 7519 141E
Full GPG key: http://pgp.mit.edu/



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