On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 07:56:46AM +0100, Dirk Heinrichs wrote:
> Am Monday 15 December 2003 19:07 schrieb ext john gennard:
> > I meant /fd0 exists in /dev directory as does about a couple of
> > dozen of varieties (eg /fd0u1440).
> > It shows 'brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 2 etc'.
>
> That means you have the device file, and from that I guess you're not using
> devfs, right? If you where using devfs, you would have /dev/floppy/0*
> (and /dev/fd0* would be symlinks to those). And this only if the driver is
> active (compiled in or module loaded). Do you see the floppy driver print
> some version info at boot time (or with dmesg).
>
I don't have access to 'dmesg' or the /var/log files I'm used to.
Jason Stubbs suggested I use the Handbook to do my original install
instead of the install guide that I was trying - he was certainly
right in my case. I've got to the end of the install, but haven't
yet been able to boot as I cannot make a boot floppy or put lilo on
a floppy (since I can't mount the floppy - none of the entries I've
tried for fstab have worked). To get into the install I have to use
a liveCD like a 'rescue disk'.
The entry I generally put in fstab is:-
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto user,noauto 0 0
but this has no effect, and I can't understand why.
I don't know much about the basic base config as it arises from
the LiveCD setup and I can't 'look around' until I can boot into
the installation. Also, I used 'genkernel' and although there's
a massive config log file it's very confusing for me.
> > /dev/fd1 also exists, but I never have more than one floppy.
>
> Seems you're using a static /dev, no devfs. In this case, the /dev files are
> allways there, no matter if the corresponding driver is active or not.
>
Yes, I'm sure that is the case.
> > Modprobe does nothing other than give out an error message 'can't
> > open dependencies file /lib/modules/2.4.21-gss/modules.dep - no
> > such file or directory'. I'm not surprised as the kernel
> > compiled by genkernel was '2.4.20-gentoo-r6' which is what
> > /lib/modules has. By the way, there is no file /etc/modules.conf -
> > is this a Gentoo thing?
>
> But the one that is running 2.4.21-gss? And ther are no modules for that
> kernel installed in /lib/modules?
>
That so far as I can tell is the kernel version used when the LiveCD
booted first time to allow the install to start.
> > May be I should go back and manually compile a kernel - I've normally
> > no problem in doing that and I generally include everything I need,
> > leaving only three modules.
>
> Hmm, maybe the best thing to do. Anyway, I wonder why you would want to boot
> from floppy?
>
As I said when first posting, I'm old (well into my 70s), and started
with no knowledge of computing. I have (to keep the peace here) to allow
a Win installation on the hard drive, and I've long learned not to
trust it - (in fact I hardly ever use it), so I don't want any problems
with the MBR. Using lilo on a floppy suits me fine - I can fire up any
one of 5 o/s (3 varieties of Debian) and would like to have Gentoo
around as it looks very good to this novice. I understand what you
say, but Linux has much to do with choice and so if I'm content I'd
rather not change unless there are compelling reasons to do so.
Again, thanks Dirk.
Regards John.
> HTH...
>
> Dirk
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