debian on del poweredge 4200

[andy <dovienya@interzone.org>]

i'm trying to reinstall linux on a dell poweredge 4200 with an ami
megaraid (perc2) controller.  currently the
system is running slackware, but i'd like to get debian on the box.

i was wondering if i am approaching this the wrong way, or what mistakes
i am making.  the 2.2r2 boot floppies are based on 2.2.18pre21, and
2.2.18 apparently has buggy megaraid support.  when attempting to boot from the
standard rescue disk, the system hangs after detecting the controller
(other posts confirm this behavior).  so i attempted to use the compact
disk set, which gets me to the point where i can load the hd drivers
from a floppy.  my question is, how do i prepare the module on the
floppy?

i tried taking the 2.2.18 source, replacing the megaraid.c and
megaraid.h with the versions from the 114b drivers, and then doing a
make dep && make modules
i took the resultant megaraid.o file, stuck it on a floppy in /boot,
then tried to load it at the appropriate point in the install.  load failed.

i haven't spent much time with modules, so i'm not really sure if i'm
even attempting this in the correct fashion...

please cc me with any responses, as my subscription seems a little flaky
lately.

thanks!

	andy