Help to install on system without CD-Rom drive
Forum: User Feedback
Topic: Help to install on system without CD-Rom drive
started by: spystyle
Posted by spystyle on Nov. 09 2006,02:44
Howdy,I have figured out how to do the "Loadlin Install" (shown here: < http://tinyurl.com/klv9a > )
I could put the line:
cd isolinux
loadlin @options.txt
In the autoexec.bat so it boots the "live CD on the hard drive" every time. Groovy, it's a laptop and I don't have a CD drive for it.
But how can I save my settings so they automatically load each time? Is there anyway to convert the "live CD on the hard drive" into an installation?
Thanks,
Craig
Posted by skaos on Nov. 09 2006,10:33
| Quote |
| Is there anyway to convert the "live CD on the hard drive" into an installation? |
Yes, you have to create a native linux partition and a swap partition. A full hard disk installation takes 120-130 MB (plus space for your data and any myDSL packages) and you need maybe 32-64 MB swap. When that is done you can run a installation script.
Posted by spystyle on Nov. 09 2006,13:07
Could you tell me how to do that?
Posted by skaos on Nov. 09 2006,13:56
I guess that your whole disk is used by windows or dos and you somehow have to shrink that partition. You have at least two options:1. Repartion the disk by a dos boot disk (or similar). This will wipe all your data on the disk, i.e. you have to reinstall windows/dos and DSL.
2. Use some kind of repartitioning software that installs and runs under your current windows/dos OS. I have used the commercial Partition Magic for this but as this comes on a CD that's not an option. You also have parted (free, < http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/index.shtml) > which runs under linux - I've never used it and don't know if you can use it under DSL. You also have < http://partitionlogic.org.uk/index.html > (free) which you may try (never used this either).
There are other people here that knows more about this than I do, so if you have patience you can wait and see if anybody else answers.
Posted by spystyle on Nov. 09 2006,17:27
Rock on, I know how to do partitioning within Windows 
So I would make 3 partitions:
1 for DSL cd content (50 MB)
2 for swap file (100 MB)
3 for installation (rest of drive)
These would be FAT32 partitions, is that OK?
Thank you,
Craig
Posted by Ramik on Nov. 09 2006,20:11
more like:DSL CD Content : you don't need a new fat32 partition, you can use an existing one while booting with an MS-DOS\Win98 rescue boot floppy that you copied loadlin to and use it to run DSL on the HD.
Swap: 128MB Linux Native Swap (83) - you can build the partition with fdisk on windows to be fat, and then use fdisk\cfdisk to change it to swap, then use mkswap and swapon from within DSL to use it while installing and afterwards.
Target\installation: 128mb should do fine if your planning on storing your files on the windows fat partition.
Posted by skaos on Nov. 10 2006,10:46
The fist partition should be a bit bigger than 50 MB - you need 50 MB plus room for dos or windows. The size of swap depends on how much memory you have. The partition type of the two last doesn't matter when you create them with dos/windows (in fact you don't need to create them at all), you have to use cfdisk within DSL to set the correct partition types (and create them if you didn't do it with dos/windows).
Posted by spystyle on Nov. 10 2006,13:02
| Quote (skaos @ Nov. 10 2006,05:46) |
| ...The size of swap depends on how much memory you have.... |
I was not aware of this, I thought people were simply using 100-125 MB HDD for swap.
What is the relation of physical RAM and swap partition size? 2 MB swap per 1 MB RAM ?
The machine in question has only 24 MB RAM, should I make the swap file 50 MB ?
| Quote (skaos @ Nov. 10 2006,05:46) |
| ...in fact you don't need to create them at all... |
Could you explain this? If I don't create the partition for swap drive wouldn't performance suffer?
Thank you,
Craig
Posted by skaos on Nov. 10 2006,14:03
You absolutely need swap and 50 MB should be ok (you'll probably run out of patience long before you run out of swap space).I guess I was a bit unclear about making the partitions, you can either:
1. Create 3 partitions with dos/windows and afterwards use cfdisk in DSL to set the correct partition types for the two linux partitions (dos/windows doesn't know about linux).
2. Create one dos partition with dos/windows and use cfdisk in DSL to create and set partition types for the two last.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Nov. 10 2006,14:46
re: swapThe more the better. It adds to the virtual memory that the system can use, although it's very slow. Of course if you don't plan on using a lot of memory, then you can use a smaller size.