Re: HELP! 2.1 install from PCMCIA cdrom

[Jim Gale]

So here I am:

I've made 5 floppies. (root, rescue, driver[123]) and booted the system. As 
usual it
boots up fine, but nowhere are there any hints about installing from the 
network. It
gives me options for floppies or a cdrom drive.

I keep reading nebulous references to "net install" but nobody has taken the 
time to
explain it. (in any documents I've found) For example:

Installing Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 For Intel x86 reads:

The `LAN' and `PPP' rows refer to Internet-based file transfer (FTP, HTTP, and 
the
like) over Ethernet or phone lines. In general this is not available, but 
certain
kernels may permit you to do this earlier. Experts can also use these 
connections to
mount disks and perform other operations to accelerate the process. Providing 
help in
such cases is beyond the scope of this document.

Maybe someone here knows how to do it? Should I start making the next 10 base
floppies?

Morten Liebach wrote:

> Can you install from floppies?
> Download the installfloppies for Potato and install. It's easy ...
>
>

HELP! 2.1 install from PCMCIA cdrom

[Jim Gale]

I didn't have any luck finding this topic in the archive, but I'm sure
it's come up before...

I'm being tortured by a Sony Vaio laptop which does not have a built in
CDROM. Instead it has a PCMCIA connected CDROM drive. Happily the laptop
is able to boot from the CDROM, so I just stuck my 2.1 CD in and tried
to install Debian. It boots and I can fix up the harddrive, but
unfortunately I can't install the operating system because Debian can't
find the CDROM. (even though it booted from it!)

Could somebody tell me how I can install Debian on this thing? (I'm
installing 2.1 because I have CDs for it but I plan to upgrade to 2.2
immediately, so let me know if this could be done better starting with
2.2)

I found a little bit in the HOWTO documents about installing from a
PCMCIA device, but it didn't look pretty. I thought I'd check to see if
there was a proper Debian way to do it.

Thanks,
Jim

To help narrow down the possibilities, here are my other resources:

a computer with debian 2.2 (but no net access, if I need to download
something, it could be tricky)
a Sun with net access (but Solaris)
a PCMCIA NIC for the laptop (NFS boot?)
I can't burn CDROMs
I have plenty of floppies around if that's what I have to do.