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Hi,

I am a windozer I know basics of Linux but have never used it
I have Slackware 8.1 distribution and an old bios machine that does not boot
from CD.

How do I create a floppy boot disk, then how do I install Slackware to HD ?
If you could give me instructions or point me to them.

Many thanks in advance,

Aaron

On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 00:03:46 +0100, Aaron Gray wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am a windozer I know basics of Linux but have never used it
> I have Slackware 8.1 distribution and an old bios machine that does not boot
> from CD.
>
> How do I create a floppy boot disk, then how do I install Slackware to HD ?
> If you could give me instructions or point me to them.

The full set of instructions are on the CD. Read them first, then if you
have questions come back.

> The full set of instructions are on the CD. Read them first, then if you
> have questions come back.

Okay I got the boot disk rawrite'ed.

But there seem to be 5 root disks necessary, this seems alot.

Can I not direct it to the Slackware CD at this stage ? Or do I need to make
up these disks ?

Cheers,

Aaron

On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 00:42:04 +0100, Aaron Gray wrote:

>> The full set of instructions are on the CD. Read them first, then if you
>> have questions come back.
>
> Okay I got the boot disk rawrite'ed.
>
> But there seem to be 5 root disks necessary, this seems alot.

It seems about 2 or 3 more than is usually necessary, but your system may
indeed require 5 of them.

> Can I not direct it to the Slackware CD at this stage ? Or do I need to make
> up these disks ?

You need to use the floppies until the installer scripts ask where the
installation packages reside.

"Dave Uhring" <daveuhring@yahoo.com> wrote in message
newsan.2003.07.02.00.04.33.598134@yahoo.com...
> On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 00:42:04 +0100, Aaron Gray wrote:
>
> >> The full set of instructions are on the CD. Read them first, then if
you
> >> have questions come back.
> >
> > Okay I got the boot disk rawrite'ed.
> >
> > But there seem to be 5 root disks necessary, this seems alot.
>
> It seems about 2 or 3 more than is usually necessary, but your system may
> indeed require 5 of them.
>
> > Can I not direct it to the Slackware CD at this stage ? Or do I need to
make
> > up these disks ?
>
> You need to use the floppies until the installer scripts ask where the
> installation packages reside.

Right,.I see, its the installer and it has grown over time.

I seem to have a no goer of a machine, the FDC may well be faulty, but it
may just be the cable, I'll try a new one in the morning it is getting late.

Cheers for the support,

Aaron

Alan Hicks wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 00:42:04 +0100, Aaron Gray wrote:
>
>
>>But there seem to be 5 root disks necessary, this seems alot.
>
>
> It is a lot. 8.1 used a new boot routine incorportaing isolinux, and broke
> the compression Pat used for making the floppy images. He got it fixed
> before 9.0, and you can use the 2 disks (boot and root) from 9.0 to
> install 8.1 without problems from what I've heard.
>
In my case 9.0 wants boot and install 1 AND install 2 (3 total).
Any news since I got it?

Stanislaw
Slack 9.0 user from Ulladulla.

| > >> The full set of instructions are on the CD.
| > >> Read them first, then if you have questions come back.
| > >
| > > Okay I got the boot disk rawrite'ed.
| > >
| > > But there seem to be 5 root disks necessary, this seems alot.
| >
| > It seems about 2 or 3 more than is usually necessary,
| > but your system may indeed require 5 of them.
| >
| > > Can I not direct it to the Slackware CD at this stage?
| > > Or do I need to makeup these disks?
| >
| > You need to use the floppies until the installer scripts
| > ask where the installation packages reside.
|
| Right,.I see, its the installer and it has grown over time.
|
| I seem to have a no goer of a machine, the FDC may well be faulty,
| but itmay just be the cable, I'll try a new one in the morning it
| is getting late.

I just tried getting Slack 9 on a P1-120MHz-32MB-800MB. I created
the boot disk (with bare.i) and the root disk set (two disks). It
booted alright, then prompted me to change disks, then just loaded
forever. I tried different disks, a different root set. Maybe the
FDD is broken, but I don't think that's it. I installed W98 to see
if it made any trouble but it went through just fine.

Now I don't know if I used the right boot disk (but bare.i should
work ok) and I really don't know if I got the right root disks,
even though I read the whole library of instructions. I'm new to
slack, obviously

Any pointers? The manuals suggest I try 'a few' different disks and
combinations of disks. I did that to a useful degree, I think,
already cost me a whole afternoon troubleshooting. So far I can't
say that the floppy install process is well thought through, I've
seen much better. I'd love to try slackware, though..

Thanks!

Loki Harfagr <l0k1@free.fr> wrote in news:Xns93AC872E3548El0k1freefr@
213.228.0.4:

>> forever. I tried different disks, a different root set. Maybe the
>> FDD is broken, but I don't think that's it. I installed W98 to see
>> if it made any trouble but it went through just fine.
>
> Did you try with this :
> http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/index.p...=download.html
>
> It may save you a lot of time by allowing you to boot
> from the CD even if not "BIOS-bootable" !
>

And moreover, it is already in Slackware rootdisks :

for instance on this distro server :
http://www.slackware.at/data/slackwa...s/sbootmgr.dsk

"
sbootmgr.dsk This nifty little tool allows selecting various devices to
boot from a menu, and even allows booting a CD-ROM in
machines where the BIOS doesn't support it (or it's
supposed to support it, but it just doesn't work).
If you have trouble booting the Slackware CD-ROM, you might
try writing this image to a floppy,
booting it, and then selecting your CD-ROM drive as the
boot device.

The SBM installer is available as a Slackware package
(called "btmgr") in the extra/ packages collection.
"

"Aaron Gray" <aarongray.pLEASEdELETEtHISsTUFF@aarongray.org> schreef in
bericht news:bdt40h$112j69$1@ID-176968.news.dfncis.de...
> Hi,
>
> I am a windozer I know basics of Linux but have never used it
> I have Slackware 8.1 distribution and an old bios machine that does not
boot
> from CD.
>
> How do I create a floppy boot disk, then how do I install Slackware to HD
?
> If you could give me instructions or point me to them.
>
> Many thanks in advance,
>
> Aaron
>
>

If you can't boot from cd you can try this.

Copy the following to a directory (let's call it SLACK) on your Windows
partition:
- /isonlinux/initrd.img
- /bootdisks/bare.i
- /kernels/loadlin16c.zip

You should already have all those files on your Slack-8.1 CD. Now do the
following to get the Slackware install going:

1. Unzip loadlin
2. Reboot you computer and use F5 to not load Windows & device drivers which
might interfere with Linux.
3. cd \slack
4. loadlin bare.i /dev/ram rw initrd=initrd.img

This tells loadlin to load the kernel bare.i, make /dev/ram the root file
system (aka RAM-disk), make the root fs read-write and use initrd.img as the
contents of the RAM-disk.

Let us/me know if it works. Congratulations on your choice for an EXCELLENT
distro.

"Loki Harfagr" <l0k1@free.fr> wrote:

| >> forever. I tried different disks, a different root set. Maybe the
| >> FDD is broken, but I don't think that's it. I installed W98 to see
| >> if it made any trouble but it went through just fine.
| >
| > Did you try with this :
| > http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/index.p...=download.html
| >
| > It may save you a lot of time by allowing you to boot
| > from the CD even if not "BIOS-bootable" !

That worked. Simple enough! Thanks!!