Re: cfdisk says hda is smaller than it really is!
>My BIOS is dated 6/8/99 and the Official CD, which I am trying to install
>from, uses a 2.0.36 kernel.
Your BIOS shouldn't be a problem then. Have you checked the BIOS settings?
>I've read the HOWTO, but installing a 2.2.x kernel is not an option yet
>since I haven't been able to install Debian yet.
How come? I simply created a partition that would hold the basic Debian slink
system on the "8.4 GB drive" that cfdisk detected in conjunction with the
2.0.x kernel, when what in fact I had was a 10 GB drive.
Make this partition as large as you would make, say, your /usr partition.
Install Debian on that partition, update the packages necessary for running a
2.2.x kernel (see the Debian website), and then create partitions on the full
drive that cfdisk now (hopefully) sees.
After getting the 2.2.x kernel to run and having cfdisk "see" the entire disk,
I created a small 150 MB partition for /, and copied everything but /usr to the
newly created partition. You may choose to create additional partitions for /home,
/usr/lib, /var etc. After you create the appropriate mount points on this new
150 MB "root partition" (i. e., the partition that is mounted on "/") for the /usr
partition (and others, if created), and move the files in those partitions up
one (or more) level(s) -- so that you don't have "/usr/usr/..." after mounting
the drive that previously held your entire Debian system, including "/usr/...",
on "/usr" --, and adapt /etc/fstab to the new layout, everything should be working
fine. (Please be careful during this process, or you will find yourself in a
complete mess. If the instuctions above were a bit brief, e-mail me for an attempt
at clarifying them. As usual, no warranties given. :->)
>Should I install a 2.2.x-based distribution and _then_ install Debian over it?
I have never tried this -- I'm pretty new to Debian myself, having switched from
SuSE (and haven't looked back since!) -- and to me, it sounds like asking for
serious trouble.
>How soon 'til a 2.2.x-based Debian?
I have no idea, but someone on this list mentioned not long ago that the number
of "release-critical" bugs would have to drop quite a bit before anyone would
think about releasing potato as the new stable dist.
Greets,
Matt
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