Re: failed installation of 1.2 on thinkpad. Tips?
On 10 May 1997, Jim Meyering wrote:
> Thanks again, Rick.
> I've just tried again:
>
> For each of three brand new diskettes, I put resc1440.bin on it from
> my Linux box using dd (first with dd-3.16, later using dd-3.12,
> and then cat) to write the disks, then tried to boot with it.
>
> Same result: hangs after the `loading linux...........' message.
> Then, thinking maybe my fd is flaky, I resorted to using windows NT
> on the thinkpad to get rawrite.exe and resc1440.bin, and created the
> `rescue' floppy using the thinkpad's drive. Tried again... same result.
>
I had the same problem on a thinkpad 365.
Thinkpads do not boot from a bzImage, only from zImages. Less than 1
Percent of existing Machines show this behaviour. You must make a new
Kernel like described on the readme of the rescue disk. (You must have a
running linux machine with the kernel sources installed for this). Don't
forget to configure the kernel with ramdisk, initrd support (explained in
the readme). Then place it on the rescue disk, named "linux".
Some Kernel sources (I don't now why and which) have the ramdisk in
/dev/ram, others in /dev/ram0. therefore you must boot somewhere with your
custom kernel (maybe you can avoid this step, try it) and cd to the
mounted rescue disk. There is a script which sets the root image up to
boot from the ramdisk. If /dev/ram0 isn't found change the script, so that
it looks for /dev/ram instead.
I would prefer if debian would run from zImages, not from bzImages.
They're not much bigger, and there are still a lot machines around denying
to boot a bzImage. You should neither try to place a bzImage on the
harddisk to boot (that is what the debian kernel package does), it freezes
at the same point. This makes kernel upgrades a hairy process.
A question at the end: Does somebody know how to install the pcmcia
package on a freshly disk-installed debian package without having to
compile it? (I needed that because I have no cdrom on my laptop). The
pcmcia package requires too much to install it by disks. Some rescue disk
makers should probably think about that. ftp install may be nice, but
without pcmcia support there are many machines excluded from this very
comfortable install method.
--
Lukas Eppler (godot)
http://www.fear.ch
telnet://soil.fear.ch:3333
talk:godot@moon.fear.ch
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