On Mon, 17 Feb 1997 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I have the Cheapbytes Debian 1.2 CD. It has base1_2.tgz and the
> kernel and the root.bin image on it. Could someone go through the
> process of installing without any floppies? I think i know how to
> boot with loadlin and get to the point of logging in. I can also make
> the link from base.tgz to /tmp/ ok. How should I deal with the
> problem of the install asking me to insert floppies along the way
> (like DRV)?
>
> Please note that this is only a though experiment. I haven't tried
> this since i already have debian installed. I just would like to
> understand how to do this for if when I next need to install.
> Floppyless install would be very convenient.
I don't believe a totally floppy-less install is possible. You need
something to boot into. I suppose it is possible to boot into a UMSDOS
filesystem from DOS or whatever through loadlin, (I've never installed a
UMSDOS fs so I don't know any of the details on how to set one up). When
base asks you for floppies, well, I suppose you could simply dd the image
onto a temporary directory by hand, and then hack the install script to
look in those directories for the necessary files, or if the install
script merely dds the install floppies simply dd the images directly onto
your Linux partition (again, I have no idea about the details here or if
it can be done). I think this is a pretty awkward way of installing Linux,
since you need to create a linux fs for installation in an existing
DOS/Windows/whatever partition, and I'm not even sure if you can do this
in any other partition other than DOSWindows.
An alternative is to make the CD-ROM bootable. Modern BIOSes can
now boot from a cdrom, so this would involve creating a FS onto a CD-ROM
that resembles the Debian install tree and a live kernel image on the
CD-ROM. I have NO idea what format the CD-ROM would have to be burned in,
probably ext2. I don't know if iso9660 + rockridge will work, and I'm not
even sure you can dd the zImage properly onto a CD-ROM. (Probably it's a
no brainer, but I can't say until I've done it before...) Since people
have been able to install whole live Linux systems on Zip drives (I think
you can make it even bootable if you have the SCSI version without floppy)
I see no real barriers other than time and cost that prevent people from
making this sort of CD. And I think it would be "tres cool." :) (imagine
this plus a 2.2.x kernel in the future that supports standard PnP
devices... no hassle Linux installation with one CD.)
Will
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