Slackware install question

[Leo J Mauler]

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 09:46:41 -0600 "Steve King" <sking at ccgcorp.com>
writes:
> Trying to install Slackware to a laptop with an 
> external CD-Rom Drive.  Cd boots, and basic 
> configuration goes fine. When I get to the part 
> that asks about the source, it will not detect the 
> cd / cd drive it just booted from, and will not 
> continue the install. Any ideas.

I got this error when installing Slackware (and other distros, come to
think of it) on systems with *internal* CDROM drives (older models, 4X
and lower, though I did get it once with a 32X).  If I remember the
answer I got on comp.os.linux.setup correctly, the BIOS might allow
booting on a CDROM drive which, for various reasons (too generic and/or
too proprietary), Linux will not recognize when it comes time to install.
 This is a very strange thing for Linux users, who are used to a feature
which Windoze users never experience: all the drivers preloaded and no
extra CDs or floppies to find.

I'm pretty sure that Slackware setup allows dmesg.  Try it out after
booting to see if Linux recognizes your CDROM in any way.  You might even
have grep handy, try these:

dmesg | grep hd

dmesg | grep sd

Look for a line which uses the model number of your CDROM drive.  Your
BIOS should autodetect the external CDROM at startup, displaying the
CDROM model number onscreen.

I do remember that my usual response, after swearing, was to either buy a
new CDROM drive (if I had the money) or mount an extra hard drive with
the Slackware ISO copied to it (if I didn't have the money).

Naturally, neither solution is available to a laptop user.  For a laptop,
if the hard drive is big enough or if you already have a Windows
partition, use a FAT partition to put a basic Slackware system on your
laptop, then copy over the remaining packages using NFS or Samba.  I have
a parallel port Iomega ZIPDrive, ZIP100, which allowed booting of
Slackware's ZipSlack on a ZIPDrive to get the packages onto an existing
ext2 partition.  You might be able to do something similar with a live
linux-on-CD, such as KNOPPIX or Morphix.

You'll want to install the A series (base system) and the N series
(networking), which shouldn't need more than a couple hundred megabytes
(especially if you don't copy over the apache package), and which will
give you all you need to install any remaining packages.  Read the docs,
copy over only what packages you need to copy over (both on the initial
install and on the followup install) and you'll do fine.  

Can you remove, say, a floppy drive from your laptop and put the CDROM in
its place?  My Toshiba has this option.

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