On Mon, Jul 05, 1999 at 09:51:49PM -0400, Bitt Faulk wrote: > I have been trying to install Debian slink for about 3 working days now, > and it will not happen. First off, let me say that I am new to Debian, > but not to linux. I have been using it since 1991, so it's not a total > newbie mistake, but it may be a Debian newbie mistake. > > I tried to boot off of the CDROM. The kernel hangs after it loads the > driver for my SCSI adapter (on-board AIC7890). I found some documentation > saying that the SCSI adapter can cause problems, but that someone (adric?) > had created some boot floppies that solved the problem. I d/l'ed those > and booted using them with the same hang. So I tried botting off of the > second CDROM, the 'tecra' one, and it did not hang on the kernel boot, but > it did panic because it evidently didn't know where to find the root > filesystem. Then I tried creating a new boot floppy with a new kernel > that didn't have support for my SCSI adapter at all (as it will not be > used at all -- don't ask, it's another long story). While it booted okay,
Quick question... Is there any way to disable the SCSI adaptor on the MBD? > it also did not know where to find the root. I finally figured (not that > it's documented anywhere that I can find) that I needed to boot via floppy > with the 'ramdisk' method and that the root is in root.bin. Now I'm > actually up to a point that looks like it's trying to install. I go > through some stuff that looks okay until I get to a point where it's > looking for resc1440-2.2.6.bin (2.2.6 is the kernel I compiled). It can't > find it of course, and there appears to be no way to tell it to look for > something else. And I can't get any farther. Then I have the idea to > boot off of the 'tecra', but do a 'ramdisk' boot and have it load the root > off of the floppy. This seems to boot fine until it tries to find the > rescue disk again. This time it looks for a file that seems sane, but it > can't find it, so I umount the tecra CDROM and mount the standard one. > Then it seems able to find the disk image and everything goes okay until > reboot, at which point it tries to boot off of that original kernel that > hangs at the SCSI driver. > > At this point, I am ready to jump up and down on the install media, the > motherboard with the SCSI adapter that I didn't want (again, don't ask), > the vendor that sold it to me, my coworkers, the debian.org website, > RedHat (just for laughs), both Deb and Ian, Adaptec, whoever "wrote" the > "Install Guide" my mother; really, just about everybody in sight. > > I know I'm close to being in danger of offending everyone on this mailing > list, but at this point, I'm real close to telling everyone I know that > Debian is a true POS and to avoid it at all costs. I would really like to > be able to avoid that. It's as if the folks making the distro decided > that if you couldn't boot off of the CDROM without any additional options > then they really didn't want your business. Try following the > instructions for booting off of a floppy. It doesn't work. All it says > is that you need to boot off of the Resuce Floppy (6.2). Try to find a I've never installed from CDROM, so just ignore me if you've already tried what I'm about to suggest... Check to see if you have a .../disks-i386/current/ directory on one of the CD's... If so, use the base14-1.bin thru base14-7.bin, resc1440.bin, drv1440.bin files and create a full set of install floppies. Note there are several resc images available (resc1440 resc1440-safe resc1440tecra resc1440tecra-safe). Also, I don't remember where it is, but there is a document somewhere explaining how to create a rescue disk using a custom kernel... maybe somebody else on the list can provide a reference??? > reference to inserting the CDROM or an additional floppy or anything. I > certainly couldn't. If I was installing Slackware, for instance, I would > have tried to boot off of the CDROM, it would have hung up, and I would > then have created two floppy disks, a boot and a root, and booted off of > them, with all defaults accepted. I know that this works fine because I > did it on this machine just to make sure that there wasn't a hardware > problem. > > Anyway, now that I've come as close as humanly possible to creating pure > flamebait, would someone PLEASE tell me that "you're a complete idiot and > you're going about it completely wrong and <this> is what you're supposed > to be doing, you annoying fool." Derision would be fine if I could just > get this f**ker installed. > > -Bitt > Mike -- Michael Merten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --> NRA Life Member (http://www.nra.org) --> Debian GNU/Linux Fan (http://www.debian.org) --> CenLA-LUG Member (http://www.angelfire.com/la2/cenlalug) -- "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson -- Proposed Virginia Constitution, 1776 [NRA-ILA (www.nraila.org)]