Re: suggestion (was Re: 2.0 install problems)

[ivan <ivan@freddie.vianet.net.au>]

At 01:55 PM 2/2/99 -0500, Richard Hall wrote:
>Sounds like he needs a boot floppy with iso9660 support compiled in.  Why
>it's not there to begin with is beyond me.
>
>This seems like a really common problem with Debian installs.  Someone
>needs a custom boot floppy in order to get their SCSI controller to work
>or their CD drive

I agree with what you say but Cristiano's CD ROM is IDE APATI support for
which is in my (limited) experience compiled into the default kernel.

, or whatever.  I realize that not everything can be
>compiled into the kernel for size reasons or whatever, but perhaps more
>effort should be made to make the different possibilities as easy to find
>as the basic resc1440.bin.  Maybe a few more choices could be added in
>addition to tecra.  aic7xxx support is one that people are often looking
>for, and it's in some obscure directory at debian.org.  It seems like
>Ivan's friend has a boot kernel without CD-ROM support.  Perhaps he got it
>from someplace beyond Debian's control,

I have asked Cristiano to say where he got the CD's from - as you say it
could be some moron version thrown together

>but if you need a custom kernel to
>boot from a CD, that should probably also be available as resc1440cd.bin
>or something, for the sake of morons throwing together Debain Installation
>CDs if nothing else.
>
>I realize that I'm in no position to criticize and that lots of people get
>their boot floppies from somewhere besides a debian.org mirror

I can't see any reason for anyone not to use an official Debian mirror -
they can't all be busy all of the time.

>, it's just
>that in the handful of installations that I have been involved with,
>custom kernels were needed over half the time.  This seems like a big
>obstacle to present to new users, and one which could scare them back to
>M$.  

It is and it seems that, in Cristiano's case, it has

>It's so great when that initial kernel boots up on the first try.  
>Really, I am extremely grateful for all the work that has gone into Linux
>and Debian, and I'm out here recruiting new users and will continue to do
>so, even if I have to compile a kernel for every one of them.  Just wanted
>to put my two bits in.
>
>Richard Hall
>Network Services
>University of Tennessee
>
>

Ivan