Re: lilo installation on IDE disk > 500 megabytes
Hello.
>
> I am trying to install the 7-14-96 debian release on a machine
> with over 500 megabytes on an IDE hard disk. I want to have a DOS
> partition and a linux partition. At present fdisk shows:
>
> > Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System
> > /dev/hda1 1 1 356 179392+ 6 DOS 16-bit >=32M
> > /dev/hda2 * 357 357 966 307440 83 Linux native
> > /dev/hda3 967 967 999 16632 82 Linux swap
>
> fdisk also displays a warning:
>
> > The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1025.
> > This is larger than 1024, and may cause problems with:
> > 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., LILO)
>
> The lilo documentation says:
>
> >Note that large partitions that only partially extend into the "forbidden
> >zone" are still in jeopardy even if they appear to work at first, because
> >the file system does not know about the restrictions and may allocate disk
> >space from the area beyond the 1024th cylinder when installing new kernels.
>
I think that your hda2 partition is under the 1024 cylinder boundary. Roar
those of you debianites that disagree (let us know, i. e.)!
Is there someway to check this with a program or can you be sure that when you
have a partition taking up 16MB (the swap) at the end of a disk of this size
that that last cylinder (1025) is only used by that partition?
> Lilo suggests either using LOADLIN or booting from the DOS partition:
>
> > In order to accomplish this, the DOS partition is mounted read-write, a
> > directory (e.g. /dos/linux) is created, all files from /boot are moved to
> > that directory, /boot is replaced by a symbolic link to it, the kernels are
> > also moved to the new directory, their new location is recorded in
> > /etc/lilo.conf, and finally /sbin/lilo is run.
>
> I tried creating a subdirectory c:\linux in DOS, then from linux:
>
> mkdir ./dos
> mount /dev/hda1/linux ./dos
> cp /boot ./dos
>
> At this point, I got some warning or error messages. It looks as though
> file names got truncated, and in some cases discarded completely.
>
> >From ls /boot:
>
> > System.map-2.0.6 chain.b
> > any_b.b map
> > any_d.b mbr.b
> > boot.0302 os2_d.b
> > boot.b vmlinuz-2.0.6
>
> >From ls ./dos:
>
> > any_b.b map
> > any_d.b mbr.b
> > boot.030 os2_d.b
> > boot.b system.map
> > chain.b
>
Yes FAT handles only 8.3 names as I'm sure you know. There is a file system
called umsdos that adds this functionality to FAT. But to use this I suppose
that you would need it compiled into the kernel as we are talking booting
here. Perhaps a little too inconvenient and wasting of space.
> I would appreciate some hand-holding at this stage. Exactly
> what commands do I type to carry out the lilo instructions (specifically,
> the symbolic link and copying the kernel)? Or would I be better off
> trying loadlin?
>
I saw that there was another reply as well. (S)He (I don't remember the name,
sorry) had some good ideas as well, like the name of the kernel doesn't
matter.
> Sorry this has been such a long post. Thanks for your patience!
>
>
I hope my reach is long enough,
MartinS
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