From: adhir@anywhere.umd.edu (Al Dhir) Subject: SLS Install Problems - HELP - ! Date: 16 Jun 1993 07:03:36 GMT
Hello all - I am new to Linux and would appreciate if some kind
soul(s) could tell me what the heck I am doing wrong.
I am installing SLS (the latest release...1.02 I believe, which
includes v99p9) on my system, a 486dx/50 eisa with 20mb ram, and three
hard drives: a 245 meg Seagate IDE, a 1 gig Fujitsu SCSI and a 100
meg Rodime SCSI. The two SCSI drives are hooked to an Adaptec 1742
EISA SCSI controller.
My drives are partitioned as follows:
Seagate 245 meg IDE: 244 meg FAT with DOS 5.0
1 meg OS/2 Boot Manager
Fujitsu 1 gig: 100 meg HPFS with OS/2 2.1
500 meg HPFS
40 meg HPFS (used for OS/2 swapfile)
200 meg Linux/MINIX (want to use ext2fs)
40 meg Linux swap
220 meg unpartitioned ( :-) )
First, when I boot from a1 and run 'fdisk /dev/sda', and type 'p' for
a partition list, partitions are numbered starting with sda5. The
list looks something like this (from memory):
sda1 [I don't remember what it says here, something about 1000 blocks]
sda5 [" " "] 100 blocks OS/2 HPFS
sda6 [" " "] 500 blocks OS/2 HPFS
sda7 [" " "] 40 blocks OS/2 HPFS
sda8 [" " "] 200 blocks Linux/Minix
sda9 [" " "] 40 blocks Linux Swap
(this is after doing 't' for partition type or whatever, and 'w' for
write and rebooting from a1) (also, as per the FAQ, I created the two
Linux partitions with OS/2s FDISK)
Why in the world does it jump straight to sda5?? sda1 is not even
really a partition. The usable partitions start with sda5! In any
case, I am able to do 'mke2fs -c /dev/sda8 2xxxxx', and the file
system seems to be created OK. But when I do 'mkswap /dev/sda9
4xxxx', the thing tells me it could not open /dev/sda9. This appears
to be because there _is_no_ /dev/sda9 in the /dev directory. I have
no idea why it doesn't create it. This is why it is such a pain for
me that the partitions start with sda5 instead of sda1 the way they
should. What am I doing wrong??
OK, to get around this, I deleted the Linux partitions (both system
and swap) and created one big 240 meg partition for both Linux and its
swapfile (this seems to be possible according to the README included
with the SLS files). I tried 'mkswap /dev/swap 40000' and it appeared
to work. Then I did 'swapon /dev/swap' and that seemed to work also,
but then I noticed that /dev/swap is a soft link to /dev/hda1, and I
do not want Linux swapping to my IDE msdos formatted disk. SO, I
deleted /dev/swap and recreated it with 'ln -s /dev/sda8 /dev/swap',
thinking this way I couls have the swapfile on the same drive as the
Linux system. Well, after this, 'swapon /dev/swap' resulted in
something like 'cannot create /etc/swapon' or some such error message.
Any help or comments??
Anyway, without making a swapfile, I am able to boot from the a1.3 OK
and can get as far as installing the a2..a4 disks, and everything
seems to work. But I don't want to continue without making a swap
file or designating a swap partition.
Lastly, the SLS.faq claims that you can install from a hard disk by
using 'sysinstall -instsrc /user -instroot /root -all', but needless
to say, this doesn't work since I haven't mounted my hard disk into
/user yet! So I tried 'mount -t /dev/hda1 /user' and this worked. So
I ran the above sysinstall line again and it claimed 'cannot find file
diska2' so I bagged this rout and ran 'doinstall /dev/sda8'. Lo and
behold, it asked where I wanted to install from, floppy, hd, etc! I
selected HD and it asked which HD. I replied '/dev/hda1' and it cried
about not being able to find '/mnt/install'. SO, I moved all the
Linux files into /install on my msdos formatted /dev/hda1 and redid
the above 'doinstall' procedure. It still claimed it couldn't find
'/mnt/install/diska2' even though I checked and it IS there. So how
the heck to I install from hard disk?!?! I really want to avoid
making 25 more install disks (I already made a1..a4).
Sorry this is so long but I'd really appreciate any help. I am sorry
if any of this is covered in the FAQs, but I really don't think it is,
I read all of them pretty carefully.
-- -----------------------------------___------------------------------------- | Al Dhir, Technical Consultant /___\ UMCP CSC Consulting Lab | | Internet: adhir@is-next.umd.edu (o o) (301) 405-1500 (301) 405-3014 | -------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo---------------------------------