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Re: Driver installation problems



>Kevin Traas wrote:
>
>>Dave Neuer wrote:
>>
>>Here's the situation:
>>
>>I am a web developer.  I have a PowerMac 8500 at home, on which I do most of 
>>my development.  My ISP is a pain to deal with regarding CGI scripts and
>>stuff, so I decided to set up an intranet at home to do my development on.  I
>> got a used Packard Bell 486 machine with a floppy drive, and put an SMC
>>Ethernet card in it.
>>
>>I was able after a huge hassle to install the base Debian distribution on the
>>PC.  However, because I had downloaded the image files on my Mac, I couldn't
>>mount them; I had had to transfer them on a PC disk to the PC and run rawrite
>>on them there.  Consequently, I had to use the 1.2 Mb driver and rescue images
>>(because the mac couldn't write the larger files to the PC formatted disks
>>thanks to the space that the formatting takes up).
>>
>>During the Linux installation, I got the the driver installation phase.  I was
>>unable to install drivers for either my Logitech Bus Mouse, or my Ethernet
>>card, due to dependencies in those drivers to object files that the installer
>>apparently couldn't find (misc.o for the mouse, something like 8303.o for the
>>Ethernet card).
>>
>>I realize that I could get the Kernel sources and recompile them; however, the
>>source files for the kernal (not to mention the gcc binary .deb package) are
>>too big to transfer via floppy, and (obviously) I can't transfer the files via
>>Ethernet.
>>
>>What are my options for getting this working?  I have a 14.4 modem installed
>>in the PC, but there is no modem entry in /dev.  I don't have a CD ROM (nor do
>>I have money right now to purchase the Debian CD).  Until I get the Ethernet
>>working, this setup is pretty much useless to me.
>
>A CDROM would be, by far, your easiest option.....
>
>You can get a cheap ATAPI compatible drive from www.onsale.com or something.
>You can get the Debian distribution for $4 + s&h (www.lsl.com).
>
>Downloading what you need via 14.4 is going to cost you lots from your ISP 
> - many hours of download time.  Use that money instead to invest in the drive
>and CD set.
>
>For your modem, you can use:
>
>/dev/ttyS0    - COM1
>/dev/ttyS1    - COM2
>/dev/ttyS2    - COM3
>/dev/ttyS3    - COM4
>
>later,

Well, my ISP doesn't charge for time, and I literally have no money right now
(having a baby in the next few weeks, wife stopped working).  So buying anything
is out.

The modem in the PC is an ISA card modem.  Will this map to one of the /dev/
ttyS's?  Rember, I'm primarily a Mac person, so I don't know an IRQ from my left
knee, and to me an I/O address is a place one one of the moons of Jupiter that
the postman delivers mail to.

If Linux can find my modem, I'll download the software directly that way.  In
the meantime, anyone else have any ideas?  I could use MacGZip to gzip the .deb
files and transfer them on a PC-formatted floppy, but would I get much
compression, or are the files already compressed to the max?  Anyone know of a
compression/archive format that allows multi-volume archives with tools
available for both platforms?

Thanks,
Dave


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