Re: Installation help

[David Wright <d.wright@open.ac.uk>]

Quoting Sunil Pandey (sunny@cse.iitb.ernet.in):
>         This may not be the correct place to ask but since it is related
> to debian installation, I would ask it anyway. Thing is debian  allows a
> way to install through existing dos. Now, my comp already  has  Win-2000
> and that would not let me boot into dos. can someone suggest a way to do
> this.

This is precisely the correct place. My answer might not be quite
so precise...

For linux, you're going to need (at least) two partitions, one for
swap and one for linux.

Create your swap-sized partition but make it a dos partition and
copy the appropriate installation files to it.

Make a dos boot floppy and boot from it.

Find out what dos has called your dos partition, say X:,
and where your files are, presumably X:\.

Type

X:                                                   <- the drive letter
cd \                                                 <- the directory
loadlin linux root=/dev/ram initrd=disks-1.44/root.bin

Do the installation, but choose "Do without a swap partition"
when it offers to create one.

At some time in the future, whenever you've got your base system
installed, and the dos partition is now redundant,

               vvvv
mkswap -c /dev/hdaX (-c checks for bad blocks, choose hdaX appropriately),
edit /etc/fstab to add the single line, again appropriately,

/dev/hdaX none swap sw 0 0
     ^^^^
               vvvv
swapon -a /dev/hdaX (to make it use it)

all as root. Double check the partition name before you mkswap it.
(Perhaps mount -t msdos /dev/hdaX /mnt first and then umount /mnt
as a check.)

Cheers,

-- 
Email:  d.wright@open.ac.uk   Tel: +44 1908 653 739  Fax: +44 1908 655 151
Snail:  David Wright, Earth Science Dept., Milton Keynes, England, MK7 6AA
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