Re: Replacing Ubuntu with Debian Etch
On Wed, 2008-11-19 at 09:47 -0800, jeffry killen wrote:
> Hello:
> I recently purchased a laptop from Linux Certified
> of Sunnyvale California.
> I [..] want to switch to Debian Etch 4.0 r1
> (for AMD64)
> The First problem:
> I insert the Debian install disc 1 and reboot
> setting CMOS to boot from cd rom (DVD/CD/RW).
> All goes well until after setting the language and
> time zone, etc. Then the cdrom drive cannot be
> detected.
A lot of new hardware and chipset was released to market since Debian
Etch was published 20 month ago. The drivers for new chipset are not
included in Etch 4.0r1.
You have two solution:
1. use "Etch-and-a-half" CD, which has an updated kernel (and
other hardware related update).
http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/debian-installer/etchnhalf
or [If that doen't work either]
2. Install DebianTesting (Lenny). It is going to be released "soon" and
you will automatically get/download the bug-fixed version of the
packages.
> The odd academic question is:
> How is it that the installer cannot detect the
> cdrom when it is running off the cdrom?
That's actually an easy one: When the CD is booted, the bootloader use
the BIOS to read two important file into RAM (a kernel, and a ramdisk
image).
The kernel is then booted. It can start the core of Debian-Installer,
which is in the ramdisk, but at some point, it needs to fetch some extra
Debian-installer modules on the CDROM.
But now, the kernel is booted ant it uses it's own driver to access the
hardware (i.e the disk).
So it the kernel don't support you disk controller, you can't get beyond
that point.
Franklin
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