[Techtalk] debian vs ibm

Dominik Schramm dominik.schramm at gmxpro.net
Fri Dec 12 20:17:21 EST 2003


Hi,

On 12/12/2003 06:39 PM, Pamela Talene Hale wrote:

>I am charged with installing debian on an IBM xseries 335 server. [...] Debian wants a preload with the proper module before it can proceed.  preload-2.4.20.bin would probably do it for me, but people.debian.org is still down and I cannot find that preload anywhere else.
>  
>

What I'd find easiest in that situation (pick 1. or 2.):

1.
* Compile a monolithic kernel with everything in it that your hardware 
requires.
* Make a boot floppy with this kernel (with root file system on extra 
floppy)
* Take the root.bin disk image from some Debian CD
* Reboot from floppy and the second disk root.bin will start the 
installation
   (you can install via ftp, e.g.)

2.
* Compile a modular kernel
* Get boot.bin, root.bin and perload.bin from some Debian CD
   and see how they're built:
   If I remember correctly, the boot.bin contains a msdos file system
   with lilo installed in the boot sector; you can just exchange the kernel
   and rerun lilo with your floppy mount point as (ch)root.
   Same should apply to the other disks: just copy your new kernel files
   over the existing ones.
   
See http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/index.html
for details on how to create boot/root disks.
I always fail to set the "ramdisk word" to 49152, which is necessary
for a two disk set to work.

>[...] If I boot from the knoppix cd, I can mount the drive and see that stuff has indeed been written there, so the mpt module must be part of the knoppix installation. . .
>  
>

You could take the kernel plus modules from Knoppix and modify
the Debian boot disks (boot.bin, root.bin, preload.bin) with these
Knoppix files.

Hope this helps, but if it doesn't I can look up details on the steps above.
(I had to do this with some brandnew Dell hardware lately.)

regards
dominik




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