Need advice for HD install strategy...Forum: HD Install Topic: Need advice for HD install strategy... started by: bigkahuna Posted by bigkahuna on May 10 2005,16:52
I've had a dual boot HD install of DSL 0.92 for a while now and keeping old Windoze 95 on that system just seems to be a waste... so I'd like to do a full HD install of DSL instead.Unfortunately, it'll be a little tricky because this old laptop has a single bay for floppy and CD, -but- cannot boot from CD (yes I've tried -all- the boot managers, it just -won't- boot from CD). So what I think I need to do is boot from floppy and somehow repartition and reformat the HD and copy a base OS to HD. Then shut down the system and install the CD drive, boot from the minimal Linux OS on the HD and finish the DSL install from CD. Only thing is, I haven't a clue how to do this? Is there a better way? I don't have a CD burner but I do have an external 56k modem I can borrow from another machine. Any ideas? Thanks! Posted by aveline on May 11 2005,01:03
Flash the bios maybe if thats a possibility first & see if that will enable cd rom booting?aveline Posted by bigkahuna on May 11 2005,01:38
No, tried that before. This computer's too old to support booting from CD (Samsung Pentium 133 notebook). The floppy / cd drive bay isn't even "hot swappable", so whatever is in the bay when the system boots is what stays there.I remember seeing someone post how to boot, repartition and format from floppy on this forum a couple months back... I just can't remember how and haven't been able to find the post... Paul Posted by musther on May 11 2005,02:02
I was about to suggest copying DSL to a partition on the laptop, you could use floppies, or maybe a modem connection (if you can find reasonable dos utils to run from a boot floppy). And then I came across this, which tells you, step by step, how to do it.< http://damnsmalllinux.org/install_from_floppy.html > Have fun! Posted by musther on May 11 2005,02:05
This could also help, with a little modification.< http://damnsmalllinux.org/network-install.html > Posted by cbagger01 on May 11 2005,02:44
search the forums for keyword:poorman* Posted by bigkahuna on May 11 2005,02:48
I thought about doing a floppy install, but it'd be -alot- of work. That might be my last resort.I read about the network install, I'm not sure how to modify it for my needs. What I -do- already have is the system up and dual booting W95 / DSL 0.92, so I was wondering if maybe I could: 1. Boot up DSL 0.92 2. Wipe the W95 partition 3. Create 2 new partitions, one 64mb and another to hold the rest of the space as "empty". 4. Download the latest version of DSL to the new 64mb partition. 5. Modify Lilo to boot the new version of DSL 6. Reboot to new DSL 7. Wipe all partitions but the 64mb DSL partition and create one big new one for DSL installation 8. Do a HD install of new DSL What do you think? Any other ideas? If it didn't work, then the fall back plan would be to do a floppy only install? Posted by bigkahuna on May 11 2005,02:55
I don't want to do a poorman's install. I want to repartition the entire HD and reformat the whole thing (2 gb) for Linux/DSL (Ext2). What I -really- wish I could do is what I used to do in my old "DOS" days, where I'd boot up a floppy and use it to partition and format a HD. In the process, "SYS" would be installed on the HD so it became bootable. Anyway of doing this in Linux / DSL? Posted by cbagger01 on May 11 2005,03:09
Yesdo a poormans install resize your poormans partition with the gnu parted mydsl extension use newly created free space for your dsl full hd install finally, after rebooting into your hd installed system you can delete your poormans partition and reuse the space as a linux swap partition. Posted by bigkahuna on May 11 2005,03:58
Ok, remember I can only boot from floppy or HD, and in order to use the CD drive I have to boot from HD first...So lemme see if I understand you:
I have 2 partitions now: a big W95 partition (hda1) and a 300mb DSL partition (hda2). So if I recall correctly, a poorman's install is copying the contents of /knoppix/ to the hard drive. So are you suggesting that I create a new small partition (removing hda1 and hda2) thus creating say a 100mb hda partition?
Ok, I think I've got ya.
Ok, I use the install script to install DSL to hda2, then I reformat hda1 to a linux swap partition, right? Ok, I think I can do this with my existing DSL cd (0.92), but if I want to upgrade, is there a way to do this with apt-get? (ie apt-get dist-upgrade)? Posted by cbagger01 on May 11 2005,11:23
My preference is to resize your existing partition (hda1) down to a smaller size like 100MB and use it for the poorman's install.Sometimes a poorman's install will not work if the knoppix file is stored in a higher numbered partition. The risk of deleting everything and starting over is if you make a mistake, then you have no OS to boot into and need to dig out Tom's root boot disk or a DOS disk and start over. Yes Yes DSL is not upgradable via apt-get. If you do a dist-upgrade, it will break your installation mainly because the standard Debian distribution uses the XFree86 Xwindows system and DSL does not. The advantage of a frugal or poorman's install is that you can upgrade your entire system merely by replacing the /knoppix/knoppix file with the latest version. Posted by bigkahuna on May 11 2005,15:54
But can you do it without a CD burner? Since the "update" is an .iso file, you can't copy the new /knoppix/ directory unless it's been burned to a CD, right? Or is there a way to open the .iso file? I've heard of "iso buster" but never used it before, is there a Linux open source equivalent? Thanks Posted by cbagger01 on May 11 2005,23:48
Yes, you can mount the iso file from within Linux.For example: sudo su mkdir /home/dsl/image mount -t iso9660 -o loop /home/dsl/dsl-1.1.iso /home/dsl/image emelfm & exit exit Then use emelfm to copy the knoppix file over from the /home/dsl/image subdirectory to a place somewhere else on your hard drive. When finished, you can unmount it with: sudo su umount /home/dsl/image exit exit Posted by bigkahuna on May 12 2005,00:25
Thanks Cbagger!!I need to print out this thread and think it through a little bit, but sounds very do-able and not very hard. Cool. When I'm done I'll have a fully dedicated DSL machine... way cool... Thanks again, Paul Posted by rettore on May 14 2005,18:47
If you still have win95(or 98) installed, you can do the following:-Download the iso file of DSL -Create a new folder called KNOPPIX in C:(You have to enable an option in windows that allow names in capital letters, I don´t know how and where is this option in English, because I´m Brazilian) -Download ISOBUSTER, here a link < http://www.isobusterdownload.org/isobuster_all_lang.zip > -Download the file loadlin.exe, here a link < ftp://elserv.ffm.fgan.de/pub....exe.gz, > extract loadlin.exe to C:\KNOPPIX -Execute ISOBUSTER, open the iso file(DSL) and extract all to C:\KNOPPIX -Create a new file called LINUX.BAT in C:\KNOPPIX LINUX.BAT =cut here================================================== CD\KNOPPIX loadlin.exe linux24 initrd=minirt24.gz APPEND lang=us ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix KNOPPIX mousewheel =cut here================================================== the above command must all in the same line -After you extract the iso file to C:\KNOPPIX, there is a folder called boot(C:\KNOPPIX\boot), copy all that is inside the folder boot to C:\KNOPPIX -Make a boot floppy disk for win95(can be win98 too) -Boot with this floppy disk and go to C:\KNOPPIX Ex. C: CD KNOPPIX -Execute loadlin Ex. loadlin.exe -Now it will boot like if you were booting from the Live-CD -Make a new partition for Linux and format it and install DSL in this partition PS. Sorry if it is a bit confusing, but as I said before, I´m Brazilian and I´m not fluent in English Posted by rettore on May 14 2005,18:49
-Sorry execute LINUX.BAT not loadlin.exe
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