On Fri, Mar 23, 2001 at 08:46:31AM -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > G'Day ! > > I need to install Debian on several computers. However the twist is that > the hardware on these computers is such that the only way to access the > drives is by pulling the drive and making it the slave drive on a working > Linux desktop computer. (ie no floppies, no CD, no NIC, no Modem on > computers being upgraded. They are currently NT). > > I have read the docs included on the Debian CD and they hint it is > possible but do not offer specifics. > > Any suggestions ?
Unless you have debian systems with known-good configurations, you will not be happy if you need to rearrange your drives every time you want to install a package you forgot you wanted. Get some NICs, or at least set up ppp over null modem (this will be ok for fine tuning, but pretty slow for major installs/updates, unless you leave it overnight). As for the mechanics of it, put the drive in the working linux box, then partition it, mkfs/mkswap it, mount it on /target, mount other partitions in the appropriate spots under /target, untar base-2.2.tgz in /target, configure lilo, and, umm, do some other stuff that I probably forgot here, like put a kernel+System.map in /target/boot. For convenience, you might as well just leave the drive jumpered as slave, if your BIOS can boot it that way. Otherwise, you might have problems with lilo if it was set up to boot from hdb, but the drive that used to be hdb was now hda. -- #define X(x,y) x##y Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X([EMAIL PROTECTED] , ns.ca) "The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours! Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BCE
