Seriously.

I've got a laptop that currently dual-boots Debian and Windows 2k. I'd
like to replace the Debian installation with Slackware (I'm more used to
the latter).

Problem is, the laptop has no floppy drive, a questionable CDROM drive (it
reads commercial CDs fine, but hates anything created in a home burner),
and is too old to boot from the network or USB devices.

So, what I'd *like* to do is boot Debian and kick off a Slackware
installation (via NFS) from within that, which would then overwrite the
Debian install itself.

Can it actually be done? I'm suspecting not, as by the time Debian's
booted to a prompt where I can set anything off from, the OS is all up and
running and won't let something so horrible happen (unlike firing the
install off from MSDOS say, where DOS will let things stomp all over
memory if they want!)

(My other options are taking the hard disk out of the laptop and sticking
in another machine to do the install, or finding a floppy drive for the
laptop... I doubt the latter's going to be easy though)

cheers

Jules

Jules <julesrichardsonuk@remove.this.yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> I've got a laptop that currently dual-boots Debian and Windows 2k. I'd
> like to replace the Debian installation with Slackware (I'm more used to
> the latter).
>
> Problem is, the laptop has no floppy drive, a questionable CDROM drive (it
> reads commercial CDs fine, but hates anything created in a home burner),
> and is too old to boot from the network or USB devices.
>
> So, what I'd *like* to do is boot Debian and kick off a Slackware
> installation (via NFS) from within that, which would then overwrite the
> Debian install itself.
>
> Can it actually be done?

It depends on how amenable Slack is to chroot installs. I'm thinking "very":
http://hacktavista.com/howto/chroot_slackware.html

Instructions for those seeking to install _Debian_ in a chroot environment:
http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/v...nChrootInstall

--
Cheers, "He who hesitates is frost."
Rick (Debian user, fond of Slackware) Moen -- Inuit proverb
rick@linuxmafia.com

On 2006-03-14, Jules <julesrichardsonuk@remove.this.yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> Seriously.
>
> I've got a laptop that currently dual-boots Debian and Windows 2k. I'd
> like to replace the Debian installation with Slackware (I'm more used to
> the latter).
>
> Problem is, the laptop has no floppy drive, a questionable CDROM drive (it
> reads commercial CDs fine, but hates anything created in a home burner),
> and is too old to boot from the network or USB devices.
>
> So, what I'd *like* to do is boot Debian and kick off a Slackware
> installation (via NFS) from within that, which would then overwrite the
> Debian install itself.
>
> Can it actually be done? I'm suspecting not, as by the time Debian's
> booted to a prompt where I can set anything off from, the OS is all up and
> running and won't let something so horrible happen (unlike firing the
> install off from MSDOS say, where DOS will let things stomp all over
> memory if they want!)

It wouldn't necessarily be easy, but one possibility is available if you
have many partitions for debian instead of just one. Boot debian,
umount all your filesystems except /, and then partition your disk for
Slackware and run the installer, making sure you don't attempt to
overwrite the partition at /. (The installer should be smart enough not
to allow you to do this.)

In theory, this can work even if you only have / and swap in your
current install: deactivate your swap, install some sort of minimal
linux on it (either mirror debian's essential files, or get some other
minimal distro), and boot from there, installing Slackware to Debian's
former /. Deeper into theory, you could put Slackware's installer into
the old swap partition, but the entire ISO image might not fit, so you
might have to put just the installer on it.

Of course, if commercial CDs work, buy a set from the Slackware store.

--keith

--
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(try just my userid to email me)
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see X- headers for PGP signature information

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:30:07 +0000, Jules wrote:

>
>
> Seriously.
>
> I've got a laptop that currently dual-boots Debian and Windows 2k. I'd
> like to replace the Debian installation with Slackware (I'm more used to
> the latter).
>
> Problem is, the laptop has no floppy drive, a questionable CDROM drive (it
> reads commercial CDs fine, but hates anything created in a home burner),
> and is too old to boot from the network or USB devices.
>
> So, what I'd *like* to do is boot Debian and kick off a Slackware
> installation (via NFS) from within that, which would then overwrite the
> Debian install itself.
>
> Can it actually be done? I'm suspecting not, as by the time Debian's
> booted to a prompt where I can set anything off from, the OS is all up and
> running and won't let something so horrible happen (unlike firing the
> install off from MSDOS say, where DOS will let things stomp all over
> memory if they want!)
>
> (My other options are taking the hard disk out of the laptop and sticking
> in another machine to do the install, or finding a floppy drive for the
> laptop... I doubt the latter's going to be easy though)
>
> cheers
>
> Jules
>
There was a recent topic on a.o.l.s: no cdrom, which I commented:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.o...128facee780cbe

I think all you would need to do is boot the kernel with the initrd (as I
indicated.) When the kernel loads and you arrive at the login prompt,
start networking followed by the setup program. NFS is a supported
install option, but I've haven't done it that way (yet). The setup kernel
does not rely on mounting any discs (just the initrd into ram), so you are
free to overwrite the space being used by Debian with no conflicts.

There were quite a few ideas on the referenced thread.

--
Douglas Mayne

On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 18:16:30 -0700, Douglas Mayne wrote:

> On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:30:07 +0000, Jules wrote:
>
<snip>
>>
>>
>>
>> cheers
>>
>> Jules
>>
> There was a recent topic on a.o.l.s: no cdrom, which I commented:
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.o...128facee780cbe
>
> I think all you would need to do is boot the kernel with the initrd (as I
> indicated.) When the kernel loads and you arrive at the login prompt,
> start networking followed by the setup program. NFS is a supported
> install option, but I've haven't done it that way (yet). The setup kernel
> does not rely on mounting any discs (just the initrd into ram), so you are
> free to overwrite the space being used by Debian with no conflicts.
>
> There were quite a few ideas on the referenced thread.
>
One other thing: you will need the file:
slackware-10.2/rootdisks/network.dsk

You can approximate what the setup cd does to get networking started as
follows:

1. Mount the disc with network.dsk to a temp location.
2. Mount the file network.dsk as a loopback on /network
3. cd to /network/scripts and execute the script network.sh
4. Hopefully your network card will be recognized when this script runs.
5. cd / and umount /network
6. umount location mount in step 1.

Note: The card's address is setup by you manually within setup (no
dhcp option).

It's not pretty, but _maybe_ it works.

--
Douglas Mayne

On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 16:52:22 -0800, Keith Keller <kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote:

>It wouldn't necessarily be easy, but one possibility is available if you
>have many partitions for debian instead of just one. Boot debian,
>umount all your filesystems except /, and then partition your disk for
>Slackware and run the installer,

Which is where? (I think it is only in the isolinux image?)

> making sure you don't attempt to
>overwrite the partition at /. (The installer should be smart enough not
>to allow you to do this.)

Slackware install target is /mnt, one may mount other resources to
mountpoints hanging off /, create your own additional resource
mountpoints while preparing for the install. NFS works well, I
setup and test the network connection prior to starting slack
installer.

> Deeper into theory, you could put Slackware's installer into
>the old swap partition, but the entire ISO image might not fit, so you
>might have to put just the installer on it.

Slackware installer isolinux image is < 6MB, you could preload the
install source tree under Debian or win2k and install from HDD, or
install over NFS.

I've not quite done that, but I've installed the Slackware isolinux
image to a small primary partition for maintaining a firewall box that
has no CDROM.

Works for me:
root@deltree:~# mount /home/other/
root@deltree:~# df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
....
/dev/hda1 31077 5466 24007 19% /home/other
root@deltree:~# ls -l /home/other/
total 19
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 2005-10-30 21:55 boot/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 2005-10-30 21:03 dev/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 2005-12-18 12:26 etc/
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 2005-10-30 20:39 lost+found/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 2005-10-30 20:40 mnt/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 2005-10-30 20:40 proc/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 2005-10-30 20:40 sys/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 2005-10-30 20:40 tmp/
root@deltree:~# ls -l /home/other/boot/
total 5445
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 152609 2005-10-30 21:09 System.map.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1474560 2005-10-30 20:41 bare.i
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 512 2005-10-30 21:10 boot.0301
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1256566 2005-10-30 21:09 bzImage
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2645572 2005-10-30 21:18 initrd.img
-rw------- 1 root root 14848 2005-10-30 21:55 map
root@deltree:~# cat /etc/lilo.conf
# /etc/lilo.conf for slackware on deltree 2005-09-08
#
boot = /dev/hda
root = /dev/hda2
read-only
compact
lba32
prompt
timeout = 30

default = 2.4.32-hf32.2
#default = 2.6.15.6a

image = /boot/bzImage-2.6.15.6a
optional
label = 2.6.15.6a

image = /boot/bzImage-2.4.33-pre1
optional
label = 2.4.33-pre1

image = /boot/bzImage-2.4.32-hf32.2
optional
label = 2.4.32-hf32.2

other = /dev/hda1
label = isolinux

This particular box has an rsync mirror of slack install tree:

root@deltree:~# ls /home/mirror |grep slack
....
slackware-10.2/
slackware-current/

So I install from HDD, other localnet boxen install via NFS export
from this box, booted from a custom boot CD, or the store-bought
Slack CD #1.

Grant.
--
Testing can show the presense of bugs, but not their absence.
-- Dijkstra

On 2006-03-14, Grant <bugsplatter@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 16:52:22 -0800, Keith Keller <kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote:
>
>>It wouldn't necessarily be easy, but one possibility is available if you
>>have many partitions for debian instead of just one. Boot debian,
>>umount all your filesystems except /, and then partition your disk for
>>Slackware and run the installer,
>
> Which is where? (I think it is only in the isolinux image?)

Bah, you are right. I thought it was on the ftp site, but it is not.
It's probably on the install.1 floppy image, though.

>> making sure you don't attempt to
>>overwrite the partition at /. (The installer should be smart enough not
>>to allow you to do this.)
>
> Slackware install target is /mnt, one may mount other resources to
> mountpoints hanging off /, create your own additional resource
> mountpoints while preparing for the install.

That's not quite what I meant: I meant, during the install, that you can
choose which partitions to mount (under /mnt) for your final install.
Obviously you would not want to choose the currently mounted / for the
Slackware installer to mount. (But, as I obliquely said, the installer
should be able to figure out which partitions are mounted and thus
unavailable.)

I've done some more exotic installs, especially with early versions of
Slackintosh: you can mount your desired target partitions under /mnt,
and run installpkg manually (or upgradepkg) to install your packages
under /mnt. (I think in that case you need to set ...uh, PKGROOT=/mnt ,
but I don't recall the exact env var to set.)

--keith

--
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/cgi-bin/fom
see X- headers for PGP signature information

In comp.os.linux.setup Jules <julesrichardsonuk@remove.this.yahoo.co.uk>:


> Seriously.

> I've got a laptop that currently dual-boots Debian and Windows 2k. I'd
> like to replace the Debian installation with Slackware (I'm more used to
> the latter).

> Problem is, the laptop has no floppy drive, a questionable CDROM drive (it
> reads commercial CDs fine, but hates anything created in a home burner),
> and is too old to boot from the network or USB devices.

> So, what I'd *like* to do is boot Debian and kick off a Slackware
> installation (via NFS) from within that, which would then overwrite the
> Debian install itself.

> Can it actually be done? I'm suspecting not, as by the time Debian's
> booted to a prompt where I can set anything off from, the OS is all up and
> running and won't let something so horrible happen (unlike firing the
> install off from MSDOS say, where DOS will let things stomp all over
> memory if they want!)

Yep, done this numerous times, you could use a kernel + initrd
offering a minimal system and then blow an image over the LAN
onto the box. Alternatively, (no image), you could try putting the
install kernel + initrd onto the system boot from that and do a
network installation.

[..]

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 284: Electrons on a bender