Re: netinst on old dell hardware

[Paul E Condon <pecondon@mesanetworks.net>]

On 20120620_083247, Brian wrote:
> On Tue 19 Jun 2012 at 22:33:44 -0600, Paul E Condon wrote:
> 
> > On 20120620_004441, Brian wrote:
> > > 
> > > I'd put archive.debian.org for the mirror hostname.
> 
> [Snip]
>  
> > I think I have already tried that, and I tried again just now, just to
> > make sure, and again I got the standard "Bad Archive Mirror"
> > message. That message suggests that either the archive is not
> > available, or that there is not a valid Release file in it. . . . . . .
> 
> I used the mini.iso from
> 
>    http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/Debian-5.0/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/
> 
> successfully.

Thanks, but I'm no longer confident that loading Lenny on the box will get
me closer to my larger goal, which is loading Squeeze and eventually Wheezy
on it. I had earlier tried to load Squeeze on directly but couldn't get the
screen to display anything readable, just disorganized patches of light. My
mistake was to use my trusty Squeeze businesscard CD. If I had used my Squeeze
netinst CD I would have seen different behavior. Using netinst, there is a dialog
about how to set up the monitor drivers. Answer the questions and get a usable
image. But... At first the install goes just like many that I have done before,
until in the midst of installing the packages of the target system there is
an error message saying that it cannot install a deb called python2.6-minimal.
This package is needed for setting up some of the following packages. The 
options offered are try again, or do something else. Neither path leads to
a bootable system either because there is no installed kernel or grub won't
install for lack of some essential tool. Its late at night here. I
get some rest and maybe come up the a revised project on which I can ask
for help that does me some good, rather good answers to too narrow a question.

Thanks
-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon@mesanetworks.net