Re: Floppy installer fails to load modules
On Sun, 2004-02-08 at 22:24, Jack Carroll wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 08, 2004 at 04:15:07PM -0500, David Clymer wrote:
>
> > > This sounds like a problem with the installation instructions. Has
> > > anybody successfully done an install from floppies on a system that needs
> > > modules to be loaded? Do I need to build a custom kernel and install that
> > > on a rescue floppy?
> > >
> >
> > I've tried before and had similar problems with loading modules from
> > floppies. I would suggest 2 things:
> >
> > 1. try a different install kernel (type F3 at the CD boot prompt)
> > 2. build a custom kernel and copy it over linux.bin on the boot floppy
> >
> > most likely, if you are going to be booting off a SCSI controller for
> > which the install kernel doesnt have a driver compiled in, you are going
> > to have problems, and will have to compile a custom kernel. The "load
> > modules from floppy" option often isnt really useful - loading modules
> > usually can be put off until after you've got a base debian install and
> > can more easily configure your system to support whatever hardware you
> > like.
>
> The manuals and some of the messages from the installer differ on
> that point.
> The key observation seems to be that the installer insists on laying
> out partitions before it even attempts to get further installation software
> from either the CD or the net, and it also needs to load modules to use the
> network boards. That being the case, it needs modules right then, and the
> floppies are the only place it could get them.
Granted, if doing a netinstall, you've got to have support for a network
card, but you dont for fancy SCSI/RAID controllers, video card, sound,
etc. In the past, I've done a minimal install on a small disk with a
single partition (intended for my / file system), compiled a kernel
supporting the controllers I needed, then booted into single-user mode,
moved files from my /usr partition to the newly available disk, edited
/etc/fstab, rebooted -thats the kind of thing I'm talking about.
> So it looks like there's a fatal bug associated with loading modules
> from floppies, and therefore a custom kernel is necessary. That's a real
> drag. This is going to be a major chore to figure out, because there's no
> cut-and-drived procedure to follow.
> I'll give F3 a shot, though.
>
The boot floppy thing isnt really much of a chore either IMHO, if you
have another machine available to compile a kernel with.
ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/disks-i386/current/bf2.4/kernel-config
will give you the base kernel config for the bf24 kernel, you can just
use that and compile with any additional items you like.
once you've got it compiled, just modify the boot disk
ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/disks-i386/current/images-1.44/bf2.4/
by copying your compiled kernel bzImage over the /linux.bin on the
rescue.bin image (the main boot floppy)
Hope that helps,
-davidc
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