Re: [PLUG] troubled newbie with debian

[Fred K Ollinger <follinge@sas.upenn.edu>]

> Okay, it's midnight and I need to know why the damned installation is
> trying to drive me up the wall.  Debian 2.0
> First, I have a second cdrom which is a Sony with its peculiar ribbon cord
> hanging off of a Sound Blaster 16 card.  The installation program not only
> refused to recognize either device as existing but insisted upon hanging
> up and trapping itself into a loop.

What messages does it say that lead you to think that it doesn't detect
the devices? How are you trying to detect them?

Also, there are newer installers out there for debian, you might look
into:

http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
http://www.libranet.com/download.html
http://archive.progeny.com/progeny/debian/iso/

> Second, I think it's the time but I cannot make head or tail of the
> instructions to make loadlin work.  As far as I can figure, I need to
> somehow con the image file off of hdb1 to c: (hda) so that loadlin, once I
> figure out how to write the instruction so it works can do its thing.
> I got trapped in a LILO boot the last time I tried which refused to
> recognize my configuration changes so it would recognize the DOS
> partition.  Had to tediously rewrite the MBR to start over.

I never used loadlin, but how did you "rewrite the MBR"?

It looks like you need to boot up in linux, edit /etc/lilo.conf to taste
then type lilo, but I really don't understand the problem here. Sorry.

> That was with Redhat 5.0.
> Now to run the dselect program, the installation keeps asking me for a
> "block address" for the cdrom.  I can't find any help except a cryptic

I usually skip this. Debian is not the easies install. It's sad to see
someone get everything right then they are dropped into deselect, which
they don't even need, and get stuck on this. Just get out of deselect.

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and uncomment the lines you want, then do

apt-get update

Now you can install things w/

apt-get install this_package

If you don't know what you need do

apt-cache search string_in_package

> statement in the install.txt file to read the tutorial for dselect which I
> would if I could find it.  I suspect it's in a nightmarishly long gz file
> which is like those tapes they used to provide with VCR's to show you how
> to install the thing.  If you can see the tape, you got the thing
> installed, at which point you don't need it..  In this case, if I could
> unzip the file to a printer, it would seem that I had completed the
> installation.

If you can get to dselect, then you are done. Skip dselect. Forget you
ever saw it. After an install, it won't rear its ugly head unless you
summon it.

BTW, there are some people out there who love dselect, and I heard that
it's great. I believe it. But it is really unintuitive, and IMHO
intimidating.

Fred

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