On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 9:04 PM, Tom Allison <t...@tacocat.net> wrote:
> > > On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 8:26 PM, Chris Brennan <xa...@xaerolimit.net>wrote: > >> On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 8:02 PM, Tom Allison <t...@tacocat.net> wrote: >> >> This just got harder. >>> I'm trying to just do a reinstall but I only have a macbook to work from. >>> And the installation media can only be a USB drive. >>> >>> I am having all kinds of trouble getting an ISO image onto the USB that >>> will work. >>> >>> I can 'cat debian.iso > /dev/disk1s1' well enough. >>> And the machine will recognize the disk at start up, but it never sees it >>> as a bootable device and just hangs. >>> >>> Many of the other instructions are assuming you have a working linux box, >>> which I don't. The files/packages I need to download to build a bootable >>> image I don't have and I can not get either -- apt-get is locked up on >>> dependencies that I'm unable to resolve. >>> >>> First: when I download a ISO for the Debian netinst image it's reported >>> as 'unable to open' on mac. >>> "no mountable file systems" is the exact error. >> >> >> Don't top post. Don't use cat either, try dd if=/image.iso of=/disk1s1. >> You will need to first turn the boot magic-bit on, w/ a/ sysctl cmd (I know >> it works in *bsd, not sure about OS X. >> >> Take the top posting up with Google. I'll try to remember. Even though > it's lame, top posting seems to be pretty common. > > I can get the .iso loaded from a linux box via 'cat' That is about the > only thing that works with my linux box right now. > > Once i get that part done I have a directory of files on my USB image, but > now the "stupid" machine won't recognize it as a bootable device. As for > your sysctl cmd -- I have not a clue of how this fits in with anything at > sysctl reads system variables and doesn't seem to have much about it setting > magic bits. Is there something similar to this on a linux platform? > I think I found my very simple mistake. Big difference between /dev/sda and /dev/sda1. At least I'm getting the USB to boot. Nice graphics on the first page! Now it's just a matter of time!!! I forgot something about Linux. Instructions are very precise, unlike many things you run into. Thanks!
