Does frugal install have to be on master drive?
Forum: HD Install
Topic: Does frugal install have to be on master drive?
started by: fluppet
Posted by fluppet on June 12 2007,19:22
I read in a guide on doing a frugal install that it should be done on the master drive (hda). Is this true?I'll just briefly explain my set-up:
Master contains one NTFS partition with Win XP and GRUB installed on MBR
Slave contains
- one small /boot partition (contains GRUB's menu.lst, etc.) at beginning of drive as my computer has trouble booting off any partition that is not contained within a short distance of the beginning of the drive
- one partition currently containing data which I plan to move elsewhere so I can install DSL on it
- one FAT32 partition containing data
- one Linux Swap partition
So currently computer boots using GRUB with Win XP as the only option in the boot menu. I would like to install DSL Frugal on hdb2 and boot using my existing GRUB.
I don't have much Linux experience, so nothing too difficult, please
. Thanks.
Posted by mikshaw on June 12 2007,19:49
It doesn't "need" to be on any particular partition, although I have no idea what restrictions the install script itself might have.Since you already have grub working, I'd say skip the bootloader install if you run the install script.
You could also install it manually, which is extremely simple compared to practically any other OS installation procedure:
1. Boot the CD.
2. Format the target partition, if not already done, with ext2 or ext3 filesystem (you *could* use fat, but why use a Windows filesystem for a Linux installation?)
3. Mount your target partition.
4. Copy the boot and KNOPPIX directories from the cdrom to the target partition.
5. Add an entry for DSL to Grub's configuration file.
Posted by fluppet on June 12 2007,20:45
Thanks for the quick reply. I forgot to mention that I run DSL off USB, and I need to use a bootfloppy to run it, so I have DSL-embedded.Is it still the same - copy the KNOPPIX and boot directories to the hdb2 partition? Since I already have a /boot partition on the drive, should I copy the boot directory to that partition, or put it with KNOPPIX in hdb2?
The hdb2 partition that I want to run it off is already ext3. Do I need to erase the data that is already in the partition before I copy KNOPPIX to it, or can I just leave it there and put the KNOPPIX directory in with it?
Thank you very much
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on June 12 2007,23:12
Which bootfloppy? If it's the DSL-specific one, you'll only need to copy .../KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX to your hard drive. The bootfloppy then should automatically find it upon next boot.note: you could also use the "update" option in the install scripts or the cheatcode "tohd=" instead
Posted by curaga on June 13 2007,10:38
You don't need to delete stuff under KNOPPIX, unless it won't fit of course ;)The KNOPPIX file is the same among the same DSL version. So copy it there.
No need for /boot directory, just copy linux24 and minirt24.gz to that boot partition..
Then edit grub to boot DSL
Posted by fluppet on June 13 2007,17:01
Thanks for the replies - I got it working! I can't believe how easy that was - I just copied KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX off the USB stick to hdb2 and copied linux24 and minirt24.gz off the USB to hdb1. Then I put in GRUB's menu.lst:title DSL
root (hd1,0)
kernel /linux24 root=/dev/hdb2 frugal toram
initrd /minirt24.gz
makeactive
boot
(with some other boot codes on the kernel line as well, I just copied them out of the example in KNOPPIX/boot/menu.lst)
During booting it took 16 seconds to copy stuff to the ramdisk because of the toram boot code, but once DSL had loaded it didn't seem to be using any more of my RAM than before I used the toram option - about 20-30MB, and I didn't notice any speed increase. Is this correct? I have 160MB of RAM.
Now my main problem is getting the internet to work with my USB ADSL modem (see Networking forum), and then I'll be a very happy bunny!