hd install question

Forum: HD Install
Topic: hd install question
started by: maddog60

Posted by maddog60 on Mar. 24 2004,05:27

i'm a little confused about the hard drive install. If i do a hd install, will i have a system where i can add users and install packages like a regular linux system? Or will i have a system that is like the damn smalllinux distro that justs bots from the HD? right now i have debian on an old laptop(90 meghz P1, 64meg ram,no CD-ROM) but i can only get xwindows to run in 320x200 resolution. I copied DSL to the hard drive in the /KNOPPIX directory and made a boot disk and now i run DSL in 800x600 in 16 bit color(never got winblows 98 to run better than 256 colors on this machine). it took me 28 floppies to get debian on here(i only have 5 floppies so i had to cycle them), so i don't want to copy over the debian untill i find a better solution. Also, I tried using the XF86Config file from DSL on my debian system and it wouldn't work. I havn't had a chance to look at the loog file yet to find out why it wont work. but if anyone has any hints on stealing XF86Config files from DSL for other distro's i'd be interested.

Posted by Grim on Mar. 24 2004,07:56

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Or will i have a system that is like the damn smalllinux distro that justs bots from the HD?

The new hdinstall switches out the busybox utilities for the standard gcc utilities, so you should be good as far as gcc and the like goes. In order to get apt working, as root (sudo su), run "dpkg-restore", that should restore the dpkg database and get you rolling.

Quote

I tried using the XF86Config file from DSL on my debian system and it wouldn't work.

DSL doesn't use the standard XFree86, it uses Xvesa and Xfbdev X servers. That's why your XFree86 wouldn't use the DSL config.

Your best solution is to either install DSL over Debian, or try to compile and install either the Xvesa or the Xfbdev X servers.

Posted by maddog60 on Mar. 24 2004,15:27

Is the any downside to doing a DSL HD install vs. building the xvesa xserver for the existing debian installation? will I be able to do a HD install even though i boot DSL off the HD alraeady? i have copied the /KNOPPIX dir to /dev/hda1 and i use a boot floppy.