HD Install :: Just the few last things



I don't know if you will like it, but there is an ugly solution for computers without CDROM drives.

1) Boot with tomsrtbt or with the native os.  FYI, with tomsrtbt floppy, you can boot linux, connect to the network AND "dd" over your hard drive image so you don't even need to use DSL or a CDROM drive.  However it is harder to configure tomsrtbt because it doesn't have the KNOPPIX autodetection feature.

2) Copy the \knoppix\knoppix folder using a network connection and place both the folder and the file inside /dev/hda1 or in C:\

3) Create a DSL boot floppy.
4) Boot the machine with the boot floppy.
5) Use dd to clone your partition.

Another option is to pull the hard drive and temporarily insert it into a computer with a CDROM drive and do the cloning and then put it back in the original computer, OR you can temporarily hook up your CDROM drive to the computer and use it to boot DSL.
Actually I think I managed to get it working with Norton ( also made around 10-15 attemps if not more ).

What I did was to create a new prototype computer. Boot in DSL and use cfdisk to create 2 partitions - a 82 and a 83. The last was at 200 MB the rest was configured for.. well.. swap of course. Thus I used the entire disk like this.
Then I made all teh mkswap stuff on hda1 and finally installed DSL on hda2.

Now by doing this ( which is also descriped somewhere here ), I got the hda drive instead of hdc which is where Norton normally screwed up. I made the modifications to the system ( copied files from the old prototype ) and finally rebooted the system to secure that it worked.
After having comfirmed it worked, I used Norton Ghost 2003 with the -id ( Image Disk ) switch to grap a copy of the entire harddrive including bootsectors and all.

Only difference is that I made lilo be the bootloader instead of GRUB which I normally tend to use.

Anyway I just ghosted two of the computers which only features a floppy drive with the image over network and they booted just perfect :D

Now all I really need to get is these few things.

Get a splashscreen - I sorta got stuck last I tried. :(

Possible hide some of the boottext.. isn't theresomething with console=ttyl2 or something ?

Thx for everybodies input :)


-Daxziz

original here.