HD Install :: HD Install with loadlin - almost works!



Hi,

I want to be able to boot from my hard disk and so I did the following:

1) Made a 400mb Linux ext2 partition on my hard drive.  Under RedHat 9, this partition appears as "/dev/hda5".

2) Booted with the DSL CD and used the standard HD Install procedure to copy DSL to the 400mb partition.

3) Made a boot floppy, using "dd if=/cdrom/KNOPPIX/boot.img of=/dev/fd0".  

4) Copied the "vmlinuz" and "miniroot.gz" files from the boot floppy to a folder on my WIndows drive.

5) In that folder, which already had "loadlin.exe", prepared a batch file with the following command: loadlin vmlinuz initrd=miniroot.gz /dev/hda5 ro

6) Ran batch file and it all seemd to work, for a while!!

7) Got the "Welcome to Damn Small Linux..." message but the next message was:

"Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry dropping you to a very limited shell, press reset button to quit."

Any suggestions??

Regards,

Geoff.
You could try to remove initrd=miniroot.gz from the loadlin batch file. I think (but I may be wrong) that this only is needed when you use the compressed filesystem on the CD (or from disk).
Thanks for the suggestion - now I get tantalisingly close to success!

At the end of the usual plethora of information about the boot process, I got the following messages:

hostname 2.08

modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module fb0

X10: Fatal IO error 104 (connection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0" after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining.

I guess that tbe absence of the floppy drive is one of the problems?  This is something I can't alter. My IBM Thinkpad 600x has a 'hot swap bay' that can contain either a CD Rom or a floppy.  I don't have the floppy.  The BIOS doesn't care, it just assigns fb0 to the non-existent floppy drive.  Actually, the same problem exists in Windows, where the A: drive is always this non-existent drive.  Hence, any routine hard coded to use the "A: drive" or "/fb0" will fall over.

Maybe my assumption of the /fb0 problem is incorrect.

Anyway, is there a way to get this HD install working?

Regards,

Geoff.
fb0 is the framebuffer (fd0 is the floppy drive) and is used by the Xfbdev X-server (I think). If you can get to the command line you could run the Xsetup.sh script (or maybe it is xsetup.sh, I don't remember) and select Xvesa instead of Xfbdev.

If it still doesn't work, it may be that you need a clean dos or win boot (I got this from the Basic Linux forum): for dos press F5 during boot, and for Win9X press F8.
Thanks for setting straight the fd0 vs fb0 stuff.

I tried you advice on the X-server.  At the prompt, after a 'failed' loadlin/HD startup of DSL, I edited the Xsetup script in the /home/damnsmall directory, replacing the reference to Xfbdev with Xvesa.  Unfortunately, same almost complete startup, with same error.

On the startup method:  I have the MS-Win automatic GUI start switched off, the PC always boots to a menu, from which I select "command prompt only".  Then I go to the directory holding loadlin and vmlinuz and exectute the batch file mentioned above.

Any other suggestions glady accepted.

I can't believe that anyone would rather boot from a floppy or screw around with their HD boot sector if they could boot with a batch file, using loadlin.

Regards,

Geoff.

fb0 is the framebuffer (fd0 is the floppy drive) and is used by the Xfbdev X-server (I think). If you can get to the command line you could run the Xsetup.sh script (or maybe it is xsetup.sh, I don't remember) and select Xvesa instead of Xfbdev.

If it still doesn't work, it may be that you need a clean dos or win boot (I got this from the Basic Linux forum): for dos press F5 during boot, and for Win9X press F8.
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