Converting from Redhat to Debian

1999-07-27 Thread Jordan Howarth
I am currently running Redhat and have decided to try Debian instead. I wish to
install from the hard drive from an existing linux partition and have read the
instructions for doing this from
http://www.us.debian.org/releases/slink/i386/install but am confuse by one 
aspect.
The instructions state that, Note that the partition you are installing from
should not be the same as the partitions you are installing Debian to (e.g., /,
/usr, /lib, and all that). This is all well and good but how are you able to 
use
that partition as part of the Debian installation. At a guess I would say that
Debian only requires certain partitions for its base install and then leaves me 
to 
add to the rest including the partition from which I installed. If so, what
partition(s) does the base install require?

This question appearred in this list in 1997 but the archives seem to have been
truncated at 1998.

Jord
-- 
Jordan HowarthCSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences 
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: Converting from Redhat to Debian

1999-07-27 Thread Michael Stenner
On Tue, Jul 27, 1999 at 12:05:41AM -, Jordan Howarth wrote:
 I am currently running Redhat and have decided to try Debian instead. I wish 
 to

yay!

 install from the hard drive from an existing linux partition and have read the
 instructions for doing this from
 http://www.us.debian.org/releases/slink/i386/install but am confuse by one 
 aspect.

 The instructions state that, Note that the partition you are installing from
 should not be the same as the partitions you are installing Debian to (e.g., 
 /,
 /usr, /lib, and all that). This is all well and good but how are you able to 
 use
 that partition as part of the Debian installation. At a guess I would say that
 Debian only requires certain partitions for its base install and then leaves 
 me to 
 add to the rest including the partition from which I installed. If so, what
 partition(s) does the base install require?

Technically, only one (well, two with swap) partition is required.  You
could have / with all else being simple directories underneath.  This
would work, but is not ideal (for a number of reasons not relevant to
this discussion).

Something standard would be /, /usr, /home, /var, /usr/local

I don't have a separate partition for /var (and am regretting it
because apt puts a bunch of stuff there).  I also have a partition for
/str   (storage).  Something like that would also work for you.

If you have a partition that will not be essential for base use (like
/str or /usr/local even) then you can use that to install the debian
base system, then once you're running on the base debian system, you
can clean the partition and mount it as whatever you want.

Note: if, at install time, you don't tell Debian you have a separate
partition for /usr/local/ (because you're installing from that
partition) it MAY create the directory /usr/local/.  I don't think
that's bad -- you'll just have to: a) mount the partition as /mnt or
something,  b) mv /usr/local/* /mnt  c) remount the partition as
/usr/local and edit /etc/fstab

If anyone knows a better way, I'd like to know it too!

-Michael

-- 
  Michael Stenner   Office Phone: 919-660-2513
  Duke University, Dept. of Physics   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Box 90305, Durham N.C. 27708-0305