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Re: How to re-install from PCMCIA-SCSI-CDROM?



"John Miskinis" <miskinis@hotmail.com> writes:

> I wish to re-install slink on a partition, and my Thinkpad 560
> has no builtin CDROM drive.  I am very close to getting a small
> floppy linux system working that can talk to my SCSI CDROM.
> What is the best way to go about a (re)install?

Not sure about a reinstall -- I've been using Debian for over three
years, and have never had to _re_install it on any box.  (Long live
apt!)  But I suppose it's just like a regular install.  :-)

If you have a network card and access to a working net, I *highly*
recommend a net-based install.  I just tried this with the still
beta-ish Potato boot floppies on a colleague's TP600x, and it worked
amazingly well.  I was really impressed (kudos to the boot floppy
team).  If they've fixed the problem that puts the keyboard in azerty
mode, then this is *definitely* the way to go, IMO.  The only other
quirk I can recall is that I had to stop and run pcnetconfig to get
the network going.  But that was semi-obvious (only the name of the
program was hard to find).

My experience with Thinkpads suggests that you'll be much better off
trying potato.  I know, it's not quite ready yet, but it's already
better than slink in many ways.  Especially for laptops.  (Don't have
to start with special boot floppies or mess about upgrading the kernel
and pcmcia-cs and X, for one thing.)

> When I get a floppy boot or even a small linux partition talking
> to my CDROM, can I easily wipe out my hda5 partition and put
> a fresh copy of slink on it?

Should be as easy as a slink install could be on a TP.  But that's not
saying a whole lot.  Unless you're using slink-and-a-half (which I
have no experience with), I'd definitely say go potato.

> Many thanks for any info.  I could not find the debian-laptop-FAQ
> mentioned a few months ago in the archives!

Slink had issues with a number of laptops (including most TPs).
Potato doesn't seem to (at least, none that aren't covered in the
normal Linux-laptop HOWTOs), so maybe it's gone away.  Not sure.

HTH
-- 
Chris Waters   xtifr@dsp.net | I have a truly elegant proof of the
      or    xtifr@debian.org | above, but it is too long to fit into
http://www.dsp.net/xtifr     | this .signature file.


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