Re: Install without floppies

[Sten Anderson <sten@bergsoe.k-net.dk>]

Brian Schramm <bschramm@concentric.net> writes:

> I have an older 486 machine that the floppy side is dead in.  I have a
> sound blaster cd and sound card in it.  That will not boot a cd and the
> only OS I have on it is Slackware.  I would like to put Debian on it so
> I have the same system on all my machines.  Plus I like it better.  Stan
> said somting about booting to the floppy image copied to the Slackware
> partition using Lilo.  I would like to have more details on this.  If
> anyone can help please let me know.

In the location: ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/stable/disks-i386/current/
or on the CD you will find a document instal.htm. That document
explains how to install Debian without a bootdisk. Unfortunately it
only says howto boot the installation process with Loadlin (a DOS
thing). To start the installation with LILO, you should add this
section to your /etc/lilo.conf (and rerun LILO):

image=/<somewhere>/linux
  label=debian
  root=/dev/ram
  initrd=/<somewhere>/root.bin
  read-only

Note: I am not a LILO expert, and I haven't tested the above! The
files linux and root.bin are available at the above mentioned site (or 
on the CD). You will also need to copy the file drv1440.bin to the
harddisk. 

The installation process should be able to read the base
system from the CD-rom. If that is not the case, then this file
(base1_3.tgz) can also be copied to the harddisk before
installation. This file should of course _not_ be copied to one of the 
partions where you intend to install Debian. If you are short of
unused partitions you can disable swap and format the swap partition
for this use. 

I hope this gets you started.

- Sten Anderson 


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