How to Boot a Dell Optiplex 320?
Apparently the Dell Optiplex 320 is one odd piece of computer; the 'Net
is full of people having trouble installing Linux on it. And I've just
spent a day and a half trying to find a version of Windows that would
install on it so I could update the BIOS to the most recent version,
hoping that'd help.
The best solution I've seen so far is to use this line at the
installer's (Etch, I believe) LILO prompt:
boot: install pci=nomsi
That gets me farther than anything else I've tried, but when it tries to
find the CD-ROM, it can't find the drive. (Apparently there's something
really mucky about the SATA controller on this particular model of Dell.)
So I tried going the route of doing a network install via
http://www.goodbye-microsoft.com, but it installs grub and doesn't give
me any option to feed the "pci=nomsi" parameter (or any other similar
parameters); I've been unable to find a way to force this grub install
to let me add boot arguments.
Anyone have any suggestions?
(Wow! I never thought I'd consider a Dell to be absolute cr*p, but this
is it.)
Thanks!
--
Kent West
http://kentwest.blogspot.com
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