[Linux-disciples] Re: Linux-disciples digest, Vol 1 #10 - 2 msgs

[Adam Kessel]

I would definitely try to get your BIOS updated as you could make things
much easier for yourself if you didn't have to deal with the partition
issue. You usually need DOS rather than Win32 to run a BIOS flash disk
program.

The Linux DOS emulator is dosemu, but you may not have that with
demolinux... My suggestion would be to track down a DOS/Windows system
somewhere and just make the flash boot disk for your box.  If you have an
old DOS boot disk somewhere lying around, you might be able to do it that
way as well.

It sounds like it is trying to install everything into /dev/hda1.  I
wonder if you could set the /dev/hda1 *not* to be a linux partition for
now, and then Debian should install everything into your large partition
/dev/hda2.

There should also be a way to specify which partition Debian should
install into, but I'm not sure off hand what that is.

Actually, you might need to copy /boot into your /dev/hda1 partition, in
which case you could make it a linux partition after installing Debian,
then mount it, copy over /boot, run lilo. 

This seems unnecessarily difficult though...  I wonder if there is a good
"installing Linux on stupid BIOS" web page out there? My net connection
is iffy right now so I can't find it, but I'm certain this is a common
problem.

--Adam

On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 05:10:16PM -0700, Karl Sokol wrote:
> Thanks for your detailed response!!!
> 
> I reformatted my hd with 2 partitions + root.  (b/c I
> couldn't update Bios b/c it was a .exe and I couldn't
> get wine to work.  So, I am still limited to under
> 1023 cylanders at boot).  Unfortunately, this has
> caused it's own problem.  I.e.  When installing from
> my Debian 1 disk, (which I downloaded and burned when
> I had Win), I get to a point where it says "[Some]
> Packages failed to install.  Retry?"  When I say yes,
> "loading /etc/console/bootime.kmap.gz" repeats for a
> long time followed by "gzip: stdout: No space left on
> device" for a long time followed by "failed to
> preserve keymap!" for a long time followed by "link:
> no place left on device" and then "open: no place left
> on device" for infinity.
> 
> Apparently, it is trying to put it all on HDA1?  What
> should I do?
> 
> P.S.  Demolinux did not understand "
>  grub-install /dev/hda
>  update-grub /dev/hda"
> 
> and bootloading into the Master Boot Record did not
> solve the cylander problem.
> 
> I am getting desperate (but not enough to go back to
> Gates).
> 
> Please help.
> 
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Linux-disciples mailing list
> Linux-disciples@bostoncoop.net
> http://bostoncoop.net/mailman/listinfo/linux-disciples

-- 
Adam Kessel
http://bostoncoop.net/adam