[RULE] Re: Re: Off Topic Question (gregory mott)

[Raymundo Q. Baquirin]

> Date: 04 Jan 2003 23:22:58 +0000
> From: gregory mott <gmott at ntlworld.com>
> To: The main mailing list of the RULE project <rule-list at nongnu.org>
> Subject: Re: [RULE] Re: Off Topic Question
> Message-ID: <1041722578.3230.53.camel at ruby>
> In-Reply-To: <02121221552500.00501 at rayb>
> References: <E18M59l-0006Lg-00 at monty-python.gnu.org> 
> 	<02121221552500.00501 at rayb>
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> Message: 2
> 
> On Thu, 2002-12-12 at 13:55, Raymundo Baquirin wrote:
> > On Wednesday 11 December 2002 19:36, you wrote:
> > > From: "Joe Sprankle" <joes at primarycolor.com>
> > > Subject: [RULE] Off Topic Question
> > >
> > > I am trying to install RedHat on a laptop with no floppy or CDROM....
> > > joe
> >
> > I've done this a few times except I don't use lilo.  Instead I use loadlin 
> > (or linld for 2.4 kernels) to boot vmlinuz and point it to an initrd and/or 
> > root file system.  The necessary files all reside in the windows or dos 
> > partition. If you want to look into this, there are details of the process in 
> > a couple of my posts to this list (one of them quite recent).
> > HTH,
> > Ray
> 
> i would like to do this also, and could not find your posts.  could you
> repost, or send to me, or send me pointer?

[repost]
Here's the installation report:

Test PC: 
Fujitsu Point 510 (No Test PC number yet)
AMD486 processor, 32MB RAM, 2GB disk, no CDROM drive, no floppy               
drive, no parallel port, one serial port. Win95 installed.

Installer: 
Slinky v0.2.3.  I downloaded slinky-v0.2.3.img and disk2.img to my desktop 
machine.  Then I extracted from slinky-v0.2.3.img the files vmlinuz and 
rootfs.gz (needed to boot with loadlin).

Preparation:
(*note: this is a summary of actions performed over several days)
1. Set up "direct cable connection" on the  laptop and on my desktop PC 
(which has dual boot set up so I can boot into Windows if needed)
2. Downloaded the ff. to the laptop:
   (a) loadlin.exe
   (b) The "Linux Prep Tool" from the Mandrake 7.0 CD
   (c)  slinky files: vmlinuz, rootfs.gz and disk2.img
3. Run the Linux Prep Tool to shrink the windows partition and create Linux 
partitions.  Unlike other partition tools, this one can run from the disk 
that is being repartitioned.  I have used fips before but fips wants to run 
from a boot floppy.
		[ intermission]
At this point I did not yet have the Red Hat 7.2 disks, so I installed SuSE 
7.1 instead (the secret is out, I use SuSE)! The HD-based install went well 
and I could then set up a ppp link over the serial cable so that subsequent 
file transfers were faster than when using Windows direct cable connection.
		[end intermission]
4. With the Red Hat 7.2 disks in hand, I now had to get the install rpms onto 
the windows partition of the laptop. I copied over only the rpms named in the 
base_packages and dialup_packages files in the second_stage_scripts directory 
of the disk2.img.  One hour and 20 minutes later, I booted slinky and found 
that what was required was an iso image of the install CD. Not wanting to 
copy a 647MB file over the serial link, I made an iso image with just the 
files named in the base_packages and dialup_packages in the RedHat/RPMS 
directory, plus the RedHat/base directory.  Ended up with a 128MB iso image 
which I copied over the serial line (took ~3.5 hours).

Installation
1. Booted into Windows 95, command-line only
2. changed to \rule\slinky\2.3
3. run "loadlin vmlinuz initrd=rootfs.gz root=/dev/ram0 mem=12M"
4. at the busybox prompt, did:
"cd /mnt"
"mkdir win d2"
"mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/win"
"mount -t ext2 /mnt/win/rule/slinky/2.3/disk2.img /mnt/d2 -o loop"
"cd /scripts" and "sh setup.sh"
5. chose the "image" install option. setup asked for the iso image and I 
pointed it at hda1/rh.iso
6. chose "cfdisk" as the partitioning tool. cfdisk didn't like my partition 
setup (the partitions are not in order) and exited. setup didn't see a swap 
partition and exited.
7. restarted setup and chose fdisk instead. changed the type of the hda2 
partition to "Linux Swap".
8. setup proceeded and wanted the second disk.
9. I switched to the second terminal and did
"mount -t ext2 /mnt/win/rule/slinky/2.3/disk2.img /mnt/floppy -o loop"
setup tried to mount /dev/fd0 on /mnt/floppy and didn't succeed
10. setup continued, prompting for packages to install.  I believe I said 
"yes" to some packages that weren't actually on the iso image.
11. setup prompted for root password and gateway IP
12. setup boot config: I answered "no" to both lilo install and create boot 
floppy.
13.  setup asked if I wanted to reboot and I answered "no"
14.  I copied vmlinuz-2.4.7-10 and System.map-2.4.7-10 to /mnt/win/rule, then 
rebooted into Windows, changed to the rule directory and did
"loadlin vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 ro mem=32M"
15. Red Hat came up but complained about /proc/mounts and the swap device.
16. Did the install over, but
     -used fdisk instead of cfdisk
     -mounted disk2.img on /mnt/floppy
     -just  installed base_packages and dialup_packages
    -answered "yes" when setup asked to reboot 
..and, on reboot, got a working Red Hat 7.2 system....finally!
 
> it is complicated by the need to install via a pcmcia nic.  with
> anaconda, it seems it ought to be possible to prepare an initrd that has
> what i need, but anaconda insists on reading pcmcia drivers from an
> actual floppy, so would i have to hack the anaconda source?  would
> miniconda or slinky do me better?
I haven't used miniconda, so can't say. Slinky lets you loop-mount the floppy
disk image with the required device driver and then set up networking before
proceeding with the install.

HTH,

Ray

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