> 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.
Hi -- The instructions I used don't seem to have that requirement -- you just need "dd", which Macs can do, I think. According to my (slightly dated, and possibly fragmentary) notes, I got "boot.img.gz" from: <ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer- i386/current/images/hd-media/boot.img.gz> (NB 32-bit, and probably was Lenny when I did this, but others are supposed to work...) Then, plug in your USB device, do "zcat /path/to/boot.img.gz > /dev/sd<x>" (substitute OS-specific nomenclature for /dev/sd<x>), mount /dev/sdx (it will have a bootable FAT32 file-system), and copy the ISO of your choice to the root of the device. Then unmount, and boot your installation target system from it. I have a dim recollection that the name of the ISO file mattered, and had to match a config entry on the USB device somewhere, but my notes, alas, don't cover that case. Also, the ISO can't be too big -- you'll want the net-install ISO for this. -- A. -- Andrew Reid / rei...@bellatlantic.net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201105142144.39055.rei...@bellatlantic.net
