On Tue, May 29, 2001 at 12:51:11PM -0400, Jenner Almánzar wrote:
| Hi!
|
| My name is Jenner, i'm new in the linux world and i really need some
| help. I have the GNU Linux Debian 2.1, i'm right now partitioning a
| 40Gb. disk and the system tells me that i cannot boot from the hard
| drive 'cause this distribution of linux only supports 1024 cylinders
| from hard disk and i got 19564 cylinders. What can i do? Do i got to
| always boot from the floppy?
2.1 (aka Slink) is very old. I recommend getting 2.2r4 (aka Potato)
because it is quite a bit newer and the current "stable" release.
LILO (the default boot loader, and probably the only one with Slink)
can't load a kernel from above the 1024 cylinder because your BIOS
can't load any data from above the 1024 cylinder. This is actually
not an issue with new BIOSes when using the newer "LBA" mode of
accessing disks (as opposed to the older "CHS" method). If you tell
LILO to use "lba" mode you should be fine. Booting from a floppy is
another option, and I highly recommend that you make a boot floppy
regardless just in case you have any problems (now or in the future)
with booting.
There is another, newer, bootloader for linux : GRUB. Grub in
included with Potato, but is not installed on the MBR by default. You
can also download grub from www.gnu.org/software/grub. Personally I
feel that grub is easier to configure (also for dual-booting) and it
worked better for me with my particular hardware configuration. If
you want more info on grub, just ask or check the archives (there are
several posts from me explaining grub, but I don't mind explaining
again if I can make it more specific to your situation).
| My other problem is that i got a RealTek net card and i don't have
| the drivers. Can i download it into a floppy? If i can do that, how
| can i install it? If i can't do it that way what can i do?
You probably need the rtl8139 kernel module. I don't know if it is
included with Slink (2.1) but it is in Potato (2.2). Just put
alias eth0 rtl8139
in /etc/modutils/aliases and run 'update-modules' as root.
-D
