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Let me be a bit more specific ...
I no longer have NT on the machine. I formatted the whole disk in disgust. So
lets just assume that currently I have nothing on the machine.
I made the debian 1.3 floppies on a machine with a CD-Rom drive and DOS
command prompt (a windows 95 machine) in the following manner, copying the
files from the custom cd to floppies using rawrite2.exe
boot-rescure -> resc1440.bin
drivers -> driv1440.bin
base-1.bin -> base-1.bin
base-2.bin -> base-2.bin
...
base-5.bin -> base-5.bin
so seven 1.44Mb floppies with the basic debian install on them plus one extra
(dos formatted) to be used as a boot-floppy.
Now, first problem. I take the boot-rescue disk, put it in the disk drive,
reboot the system, get a message from debian giving me various help screens,
and then the boot: prompt. So I press return and see
loading root.bin .....
loading linux .....
and then nothing, the machine hangs. Thinking that maybe it was the disk
drive, I try again with
boot: linux floppy=thinkpad
and same thing. My CD-Rom is NOT bootable, the thinkpad770 has one but not the
760XL which is what I have.
So I currently can't start the install from floppy. So I try a second method.
I use an old DOS 6.2 boot-rescue disk to boot up a small version of DOS. I
then put in the debian boot-rescue disk (which I made above, only now I have
copied loadlin.exe to the disc as well). Now, at the dos prompt I type
loadlin linux root=/dev/ram initrd=root.bin
which were the instructions given to me in the "Debian Linux User's Guide"
which I bought and read (I also read the more recent version which you pointed
to). So anyway, now the install gets past
loading root.bin
loading linux
and the install continues fine. After that I follow the menus and do the
following
choose color display
select US keyboard
partition the hard drive with the following parameters
/dev/hda1/ bootable / linux 500Mb <-- this is my root partition
/dev/hda2/ / linux-swap 100Mb
/dev/hda3/ / linux <- for /usr
... then hda5,6 /var and /home
I then write the partions to the partition table and continue with the
install
initialize and activate the swap partition
initialize all the linux partitions (having the install format each
partition)
install operating system kernel and modules
during which it asks for the boot-rescue floppy and then the drivers
floppy
which I have (from above) and everything goes fine
then it asks which device driver modules I want, specifically the menu
says
Next Configure Device Driver Modules
well, I don't know which I need. The menu screen looks like this
Exit Finished with modules. Return to previous menu.
block Disks and disk-like devices
cdrom Device drivers for CD-Rom drivers
fs Device drivers that allow many dirrerent filesystems to be
accessed.
... etc. ...
so I don't know which to load so I choose Exit.
Then I configure the network (I don't have any)
Then it asks to intall the base system, here is where I feed the install the
five base-n.bin disks, so yes I intall the base package. Then I
choose the time zone (EST5EDT)
tell debian my system clock is not set to GMT
then it asks me
Make Linux Bootable Directly From Hard Disk
Make a Boot Floppy
Reboot the System
so I make a boot-floppy and reboot the system and then I get
LILO loading linux
and nothing. I hope that was everything. I've had the Debian Linux User's
Guide open in front of me the whole time while doing the install.
The main things is I can't boot into linux after the install so I can't edit
the /etc/lilo.config file. I'm stuck. What did I do wrong?
- John Kloss
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