Laptop Installation Problem
This is proving to be one of my most challenging installations yet. I
just recently became the owner of an old Toshiba Satellite Pro 425CDT
laptop (Pentium 100, 800MB hard drive, 24MB RAM which will eventually
get upgraded to its maximum 40MB, CD-ROM drive, external floppy drive.)
Anyway, I currently have Windows 98SE working fine on it. However, I
want to make it full 100% Debian (etch which would be upgraded to sid).
The CD ROM drive is not bootable, so I made a set of net install
floppies. After booting up with the boot floppy, I am asked for the
root floppy. I put it in the drive and it starts to load. After a
while, it quits with this set of messages...
Setting up filesystem...
mount: Could not find a spare loop device
cp: /initrd/*: No such file or directory
failed copying filesystem (may be out of space on ram disk)
Giving up!
Are there any commands or parameters I can enter at the boot prompt to
prevent the above failure from occuring? If not, then would doing a
minimal install on another system, and backing it up to a CD with Mondo
Archive, and restoring from there to the laptop do the job?
If I go that route, would it be best to use the PCMCIA NIC from the
laptop during the install, or has Debian's autodetection capabilities
matured enough to where that wouldn't be necessary? I do have a card
reader I could stick in the other system easy enough.
I even considered pulling the laptop's hard drive and sticking it in
this other system with an adapter, and installing that way. However, I
need to first figure out how to open the damn thing without breaking
anything.
So, any suggestions on how to get going here? I really don't want to
have to resort to installing Damn Small Linux instead. I mean, DSL is a
great lightweight distro, but I would really prefer to run "pure"
Debian.
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