Hello. > > I am trying to install the 7-14-96 debian release on a machine > with over 500 megabytes on an IDE hard disk. I want to have a DOS > partition and a linux partition. At present fdisk shows: > > > Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System > > /dev/hda1 1 1 356 179392+ 6 DOS 16-bit >=32M > > /dev/hda2 * 357 357 966 307440 83 Linux native > > /dev/hda3 967 967 999 16632 82 Linux swap > > fdisk also displays a warning: > > > The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1025. > > This is larger than 1024, and may cause problems with: > > 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., LILO) > > The lilo documentation says: > > >Note that large partitions that only partially extend into the "forbidden > >zone" are still in jeopardy even if they appear to work at first, because > >the file system does not know about the restrictions and may allocate disk > >space from the area beyond the 1024th cylinder when installing new kernels. >
I think that your hda2 partition is under the 1024 cylinder boundary. Roar those of you debianites that disagree (let us know, i. e.)! Is there someway to check this with a program or can you be sure that when you have a partition taking up 16MB (the swap) at the end of a disk of this size that that last cylinder (1025) is only used by that partition? > Lilo suggests either using LOADLIN or booting from the DOS partition: > > > In order to accomplish this, the DOS partition is mounted read-write, a > > directory (e.g. /dos/linux) is created, all files from /boot are moved to > > that directory, /boot is replaced by a symbolic link to it, the kernels are > > also moved to the new directory, their new location is recorded in > > /etc/lilo.conf, and finally /sbin/lilo is run. > > I tried creating a subdirectory c:\linux in DOS, then from linux: > > mkdir ./dos > mount /dev/hda1/linux ./dos > cp /boot ./dos > > At this point, I got some warning or error messages. It looks as though > file names got truncated, and in some cases discarded completely. > > >From ls /boot: > > > System.map-2.0.6 chain.b > > any_b.b map > > any_d.b mbr.b > > boot.0302 os2_d.b > > boot.b vmlinuz-2.0.6 > > >From ls ./dos: > > > any_b.b map > > any_d.b mbr.b > > boot.030 os2_d.b > > boot.b system.map > > chain.b > Yes FAT handles only 8.3 names as I'm sure you know. There is a file system called umsdos that adds this functionality to FAT. But to use this I suppose that you would need it compiled into the kernel as we are talking booting here. Perhaps a little too inconvenient and wasting of space. > I would appreciate some hand-holding at this stage. Exactly > what commands do I type to carry out the lilo instructions (specifically, > the symbolic link and copying the kernel)? Or would I be better off > trying loadlin? > I saw that there was another reply as well. (S)He (I don't remember the name, sorry) had some good ideas as well, like the name of the kernel doesn't matter. > Sorry this has been such a long post. Thanks for your patience! > > I hope my reach is long enough, MartinS