Hello, I want to install a recent Debian distribution on a clean partition of a stand-alone SCSI box which runs multiple legacy OSes, including Woody. I did not upgrade Woody because driver support for my Initio SCSI host adapter was problematic with supplied 2.6 kernels for several years, but apparently resolved according to a Debian bug report.
Unfortunately I cannot boot from my SCSI CD-ROM after configuring the host adapter BIOS and drive to do so, so I was unable to boot a live CD and test legacy hardware support. No BIOS support for USB booting, either. I have found a full commercially-prepared set of Debian 5 CDs which should include the Initio driver I need, so I am trying to figure out how to install from these CDs through a hard drive-based install located in the same partition where I want Debian 5 installed. Cue Debian install guide and FAQ. I have initialized a 3.3 MB ext3 root partition for Debian 5 and downloaded the hd-media versions of vmlinuz, initrd.gz, boot.img.gz and a cd ISO from the official Debian archives. 1) If I install this kernel and iso image in my Debian 5 root partition with lilo or grub, I should automatically launch the Debian 5 installer after booting this partition, correct? 2) How do I go about creating the rudimentary file system I need be able to install lilo or grub on the clean root partition - without what subdirectories and executables do I need and where do I find them without a working Debian 5 system to clone? 3a) If I can launch the Debian Installer this way, will it allow me to manually switch package sources from Debian servers to my CD-ROM (which presumably I can mount once the installer has loaded the Initio SCSI driver module.)? 3b) If not, will the installer pull packages from my CDs if I replace the hd-media version of the cd ISO image with the CD version of the cd #1 ISO image? Thanks for any pointers. Please do not add my name or address to mailing lists nor distribute them without my consent. Thank you. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130717191827.ga1...@nc.rr.com