Hello,
[ I'm new on the list, I hope I'll be clear and in topic ! ]
I've a problem trying to install a Debian Woody on an industrial PC via the network ;
Here is the description :
* I've an industrial PC (pentium III), without floppy, CDROM, and a blank hard drive.
I want to install a Debian system, and as the Woody is released :-)), i've looked
the installation manual, and carefully read the network install paragraphs !
* This PC has two network interfaces, Intel PRO 100B, with a bios capable of BOOTP &
DHCP,
via the 3com Lanworks' bios, called MBA (v4.31).
* I've set up a DHCP server, and downloaded the tftpboot.img
(http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-i386/current/idepci/tftpboot.img),
as described in the manual
(http://www.fr.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch-appendix.fr.html#s-file-descs).
* at the first tries, the MBA network boot loader refuse to load any of the different
flavors
of the tftpboot.img, telling me they are too big for the 640Ko available :-(( [The
PC has 256Mo] ;
After some researches (notably in
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=140579&repeatmerged=yes),
I've found a program on the Linux Terminal Server Project, called imggen, to let
the LanWorks MBA bios load correctly a boot image, and then the load of tftpboot.img
works (at least for compact and idepci flavors)
* But the next problem arise, with the following messages :
loading ......
Uncompressing Linux...
invalid compressed format (err=1)
-- System halted
* I've tried to load the linux.bin floppy image instead of tftpboot.img (after
modifying it by imggen),
and here the kernel boots correctly (with an image of a penguin drinking a beer ;-),
stopping when trying to load the root image (it's normal...).
And now my questions (!!) :
- does anyone have an idea why the tftpboot.img fails to work ? I'd like to learn
how this image is built, and perhaps how to modify it to work on my PC.
- As seen in the bug #140579 report, it seems there is a lack of testers of LAN boot
for the x86 platform, perhaps I can help to test in my case ?
- where can I read info about the boot process (how to give the root image, how to use
initrd, etc.) ?
Thanks for any clue,
Fred.
--
Frédéric Boiteux - Calistel
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