DLS install with loadlin
Forum: HD Install
Topic: DLS install with loadlin
started by: jin01
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 12 2007,17:27
Hi,I just loaded DSL using loadlin on an old 486 EISA machine with SCSI disks. Since this is my first post, any advice on how to best migrate the DSL to a true linux disk and not the win95 which it is currently on. I could not boot by floppy and CDROM so I had to use the loadlin procedure outlined in the wiki pages. Its also a bit slow at this time. I do have 64MB ram and even though the desktop loaded it is a bit sluggish. Do i need to create a swap file or disk for this?
Posted by curaga on Oct. 13 2007,09:16
Yes, a swap file/partition could be useful.By "true linux disk", do you mean a linux partition?
When you tried booting from the floppy, was KNOPPIX on the cd or hd?
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 15 2007,16:29
At the time I booted DSL I copied the files to C: on win95 fat32 file system. My goal is to have linux installed with a ext2 or ext3 file system on the disk. It's an old system and the CD boot even with a floppy did not work. It may be that someone else would know how to make it work, but I do not have the experience. So I tried the method using loadlin on a win95. Personally I do not care if the windows stays or goes in the end, right now it is just a tool to get linux in the box. The disk where the win95 is located is a 4GB disk which is devided in to two. I could reduce the win95 partition even more if I need to maybe to 1GB size. The second half of the disk is a ext3. Inaddition I have two other disks a 4GB and a 1GB with ext3 partitions already set. I would like to put a dual boot where I could boot DSL and Slackware 10.2 from the disk. Where and how would I create the swap?
Can DSL share with Slackware?
Is ext3 a choice with DSL? Do you create an extended partition first and then create the Linux swap and the ext3 partition both inside the extended disk area?
I am also having a problem having the linux see the other disks. My experience with LInux has been on newer systems which pretty much booted from the CD and I am a little unsure when I need to tell the loading system about disks and how. The system has EISA SCSI controllers.
Knoppix is on the fat32 at this time.
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 15 2007,18:17
I forgot to ask about ram memory. It seemed as if when DSL loaded it did not recognize all the system memory. I have 64MB ram. Is it possible to tell DSL that I 64MB. A mem=64MB perhaps. How would I use it in loadlin if it exists?
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Oct. 15 2007,19:49
1. that's up to you..2. yes, but unclear what you mean by 'share'. Do you want them on the same partition?
3. yes, but afaik it will be mounted as ext2
4. did you check if any scsi modules were loaded?
5. what and where did you see those numbers?
Posted by curaga on Oct. 16 2007,16:03
DSL can share swap with any other distro, but not the partition it is on.Extended or primary partition doesn't matter. To create a swap partition, when in cfdisk or fdisk select the type 82 (linux/solaris swap) instead of 83 (linux) (might be the other way around, been a while since I partitioned), then format it to swap with "mkswap /dev/xxxx"
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Oct. 16 2007,21:33
Actually... it can. I'm pretty sure it might be possible with a traditional way, but frugal's the way to go.
Posted by curaga on Oct. 17 2007,11:31
But that would mean awful lot of tweaking.. With frugal it's easy though
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 18 2007,00:28
I have linux swaps on two disks. DSL does find them and uses them. The /dev/sda1 is the win95 partition where my loadlin and linux images are at the moment. When I do a dmesg | more I can see that linux recognizes sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6> and sdb: sdb1 < sdb5 sdb6>. It appears to use the sda5 and sdb5 as swap. I don't know how it came up with the < partitions > names. I used partition magic to create a linux swap and a ext2 linux file behind the sda1. On another disk I have a linux swap followed by another ext2 partition. When I try to tell it to install to a hard disk /dev/sda2, the partition is not recognized. Do I have use chroot and how would I do that? Using frugal would mean I need to have it recognize by ethernet card? That may be another interesting issue.
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 18 2007,05:16
I found that < partitions > were the available partitions for install. I started the HD-install on sda6 since sda5 was the linux swap. However every thing appeared to go okay, until it said I had to reboot. I had also selected lilo prior to this. At this time the program either slowed down or stopped. I restarted loadlin:loadlin.exe @c:\isolinux\options.txt
When it was all loaded I looked at the dmesg to look at the disks, I noticed that the line:
sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6 > was changed to sda: sda1 sda2 < >
What happened to the sda6 partition and how do I get it and lilo back. The root and all was copied to sda6, but how do I make it root and change from the ram to the ext2 partition < sda6 > if it still exists. The sda2 is apparently the extended partiton where the swap sda5 and the linux sda6 reside. Thank you for all your help so far.
As a side note DSL is recognizing only 16MB out of 64MB. Is this due to the 16MB limit on the DOS disk where it is booting from?
Posted by curaga on Oct. 18 2007,13:37
Try "fdisk -l /dev/sda" and tell the partitions it lists. For ram, add "mem=64M" to boot arg list.You might want to partition from inside dsl with cfdisk, just to see what names get assigned..
What do you mean with using frugal would need recognizing the ethernet card?
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 18 2007,13:56
I'll try the things you mentioned. DSL is not recognizing my ethernet card. Would I not need that addressed first?
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 18 2007,14:41
I tried inserting "mem=64M" in my "options.txt" file and received the following error:kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root ff on 01:00
I reloaded with previous parameter in options txt and checked the "fdisk -l":
[/home/dsl]# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 5 will be corrected by w(rite)
Disk /dev/sda: 4512 MB, 4512701440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 548 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 x 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks ID System
/dev/sda1 * 1 141 1132551 6 FAT16
/dev/sda2 142 548 3269227+ 5 Extended
Is there a way of pasting from the root shell to a floppy? My typing is not so fast.
Thanks
Posted by curaga on Oct. 18 2007,14:48
Hmm.. seems your extended partitions have disappeared. Make new ones from inside DSL.output to a file:
| Quote |
| command &> file or fdisk -l /dev/sda &> file |
For getting the ethernet card to work, of course that can be done after install too..
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 18 2007,17:25
I have the disks back. I used the HD-install program to copy everything to sda6.I did not install lilo or grub. I have a feeling something wiped out my disks probably me. I rebooted the same way with loadlin and I changed the root=/dev/sda6 but it still loaded everything from sda1 and into ram. On the bright side the diske sda5 and sda6 were still there when I did a "fdisk -l /dev/sda". Any ideas on how I can boot the image on sda6 without sda1 getting in the way. Do I have to delete the knoppix from sda1?
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 19 2007,04:29
I tried several times to install the bootloader during the "Install to HD", but the terminal ended and stopped the process. So I repeated the process and did not try to install a bootloader. First "mkswap /devsda5" "mke2fs -j /dev/sda6" tried "swapon /dev/sda5" - device already in use so okay. I closed the term and browsed to "Install to HD" Everything copied okay, setting up "/root/, setting up "/home/dsl/" both okay. Error on -"tar: Removing leading '/' from member names
mount: relocation error: mount: undefined symbol: blkid_known_fstype
cp: cannot stat '/mnt/auto/floppy/linux24': No such file or directoy"
Then the lines:
The installation process is finished.
Proceed to install a bootloader (y/...):
I answered "n" and exited.
I mounted "sda6" and it appears there are 18 directories there.
Questions:
Is there a problem with the error? Is it the result of sda1 being a win/dos disk? Can I now try to boot the linux "sda6" with loadlin? After setup can a boot loader like grub be installed?
I think I am close, but a little unsure as to how to proceed. Thank you for all your help so far.
Posted by curaga on Oct. 19 2007,11:51
I'm really not sure what happened for you. All that is really weird.How about just installing a bootloader to boot that self-copied frugal on your fat32?
And then having the ext3 drive for other data?
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 19 2007,12:32
I think it did copy all the files to sda6. Maybe I could manually copy the image, initrd and files to sda6 from the CD. Is that possible and which files do I need copy. The "fdisk -l" sees all the partitions, but it lists the win95 disk as FAT16 is that a problem? I really ideally would not mind going to a linux only setup. But I am affraid to eliminate the win95 which is my backdoor at this time. I have a 1GB spare drive. Is it possible to prepare that drive for linux transfer all files, remove other drives and have it boot?
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 19 2007,14:21
Clarification to what I was thinking. I created a boot floppy on another machine running DSL from a CD. Could this floppy be used to boot a preconfigured disk as described above. If it has the KNOPPIX directory and image would it be able to load using the floppy?
Posted by curaga on Oct. 19 2007,14:28
Yeah, you could just use that one drive.Something like:
Boot that loadlin DSL. Partition the new drive with a 70mb linux partition, a swap one, and the rest space in one partition. Format 'em all. Then move all files from the cd to the 70mb partition.
Now make a menu.lst for grub. I think there is an example on in DSL, but don't remember where..
You could search it up with "find / -name menu.lst". The only things you'll need to change are
"root (hdX,X)" and "root=/dev/hda2" parts. Since it's the first HD when you boot it, it will be sda1 and (hd0,0). Put that into /boot/grub of the 70mb partition.
Also copy stage1_5-e2fs, stage1 and stage2 from /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/ to /boot/grub of the partition.
Now you'll only have to install grub:
make the old device.map in /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc (not sure if that's where it was) say
(hd0) /dev/sdXX
where the XX is what the new drive is currently, ie sdb or sdc..
Hope this helps
Posted by curaga on Oct. 19 2007,14:29
For the floppy, you said you couldn't boot the cd with it, so it might or might not boot the HD.But if you manage to get grub on to the hd, it will boot
Posted by jin01 on Oct. 19 2007,19:00
I managed to get /dev/sdc6 to correctly "HD-install" to it with no errors. I used "cfdisk /dev/sdc" and created two partitions "/dev/sdc5" and "/dev/sdc6". Looks okay. When it was installing grub I messed up when it asked me if windows was on the first disk "/dev/hda1" and I said "n" because it is on "/dev/sda1".Needless to say grub did not install properly. How would I install grub in the "MBR" and point to my DSL in "/dev/sdc6"? Would it install the grub in the MBR of "/dev/sda" or in "/dev/sda1"? Thanks again. I'll try the previous post if grub cannot be installed manually.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Oct. 19 2007,21:19
I think you are only supposed to use the partition name, such as "hda1", not the device.
Posted by curaga on Oct. 20 2007,15:49
that windows question only affects if windows appears in the menu..