----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, May 31,
2004 9:45 PM
Subject: Debian
Installer - Problems Partitioning
When I boot from the CD to install
Sarge it automatically loads the Debian Installer. It prompts for
language, and then begins.
Problem #1:
[?] Detect Network
Hardware –
Error while running
‘modprobe –v DAC960’
I press
‘Continue”…
Problem #2: Let me describe…
“Starting up the
partitioner” brings me to a “Partition disks” main menu with
five choices…
o
Finish partitioning and write changes to
disk
o
Undo changes to partitions
o
Blank
o
Blank
o
Help on partitioning
o
Guided partitioning
o
Configure the Logical Volume Manager
After reading “Help on
Partitioning” I choose “Guided Partitioning”. I now see
a menu with one option “Manually edit partition table”, so I choose
that option, which returns me to the main “Partition disks”
menu. I then try to “Configure the Logical Volume Manager”
but it does not allow me to complete any of the options (Volume Groups or
Logical Volumes) because “No usable physical volumes found”.
I believe I know how I want to
partition my system but I do not know how to proceed. The docs I read
indicate that because I am booting from SRM I must use FDISK, but I do not know
how to find or run this program. The Debian Installer does have an option
to “Execute a Shell” which runs “ash” using an editor
called “nano”. It explains that “the root file system
is a RAM disk”. Also “the hard disk file systems are mounted
on ‘/target’”. However, once there I do not know how to
find or run FDISK.
So what?
Well I don’t know if the first
error I get is going to be a problem for me or not. Since it mentions
DAC960, I may have some problems with my RAID storage devices. Since this
has to do with storage, is it possible that I cannot partition my drives until
this is resolved? Are there issues partitioning drives set up with
RAID5? Should I partition *before*
I run the Debian Installer? If so, how do I do this?
Thanks again for your infinite Linux
wisdom!
Jim
My system:
AlphaServer 800 5/400
256MB RAM (128MB in each bank)
Alphabios: v5.69
SRM: v5.4-113
Mylex DAC960 RAID Controller
-
Bank 0 (2007MB)
-
Bank 1 (8182MB)
QLogic ISP SCSI Controller for
CD-ROM
A first step is to create a BSD
disklabel on the disk. This may help:
http://alum.wpi.edu/~tfraser/Stories/alphalinux.html