Re: Potato install fails to load ROOT image
Stuart Ballard wrote:
>
> I'm trying to install potato from floppies (onto a laptop that doesn't
> have a CD drive). 100% reliably and repeatably, I get the following
> messages when I insert the ROOT floppy:
[snip]
> I've obtained this exact same error across 3 different root floppies
> (the third one I actually re-downloaded the image, to make sure) and two
> different rescue floppies. I'm out of ideas. Anyone?
Sorry to reply to myself, but I've come to the conclusion after further
testing that my floppy drive is 100% busted and I'm not going to be able
to do anything useful off it. I also can't (practically) replace it. I
do have a fully functioning RedHat 5.2 installation on the machine and a
fast network connection, but it's one big partition plus swap. Is there
any way I can get debian onto this puppy?
I'm thinking of things along the lines of
# cd /
# mkdir redhat
# mv * redhat
# /redhat/usr/bin/tar zxvf redhat/base_2.2.tar.gz
But then...
- How do I get a kernel?
- How do I make the system bootable (is LILO in the default install?)
[Possible answer: mv /redhat/boot /boot, and just boot off the old
kernel - how much else would have to be preserved, though?]
- How do I get into the installation system? (presumably base_2.2
doesn't extract to a fully functional distribution, or we wouldn't have
an installation program at all...)
Note that due to the aforementioned fast network connection, there is no
problem getting stuff onto this machine, and it already has linux on an
ext2 filesystem, so it should be among the easier cases of this kind of
installation. On the other hand, the absence of a working floppy is
going to make life hard.
One *possible* workaround would be that, since the floppy drive is more
"temperamental" than 100% broken, I might be able to get the rescue
floppy, at least, to boot. If I can do this, I can of course enter
"rescue" mode and mount my existing / partition as root, but (at least
according to the installation guide) you can't install from a partition
onto the same partition.
What I'm trying to say is, "Er, help?"
Thanks in advance,
Stuart.
PS please keep -user (or myself personally) cc:d, I'm not subscribed to
-boot
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