New subject: [SLE] installing suse 7.3 - again ;))

16 Feb 2002

      On Fri, 15 Feb 2002 21:26:10 +0100, =?iso-8859-2?Q?Stanis=B3aw_Pendyk?=  wrote:
...
Cd into the dir suse you'll see a file called inst-sys.tar.gz
...
you need to run tar -zxvf inst-sys.tar.gz in the suse dir.
I unpacked it (under windows)
When you boot from the floppy and it askes for cd1 hit cancel, you get
kicked into text base install
...
mode. Select your language and keyboard lay out. After you have made those
2 selections, It will bring you into another menu with a couple of options,
one of them being Start Installation/Upgrade. Dont go
to that yet. the to the very top of this menu, hit enter, it will bring up
more options, The very Last option will be Advanced Mode
(or something along the lines of that)
It's debug(expert) menu
go to that and hit enter. THE ONLY
...
THING YOU NEED TO CHANGE HERE,  is when it askes should the new image be
loaded when found, select YES.
it's menu load rootimage into ramdisk (???)
Just hit enter untill it kicks you out of the advance mode selection, hit
ESC to go back
...
to to the root menu (the one where Start Installation/Upgrade is) and go
into Start Installation/Upgrade, select install from Hard Drive, enter the
correct info and you on your way.
I write source dir  (/suse) and it's not helping
I can not manage it. I think I'll download 7.3-evaluation iso image and
maybe I'll install it.
Thanks anyway
Sasza
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no no no no no

were going to get this damn thing installed and workin weather SuSE likes it or not. Let me
give you the basic rundown as of why, and whats going on in SuSE's little corner of the
Linux world. 

Ever seince SuSE version 7.1, SuSE has decided to become little money hungry bastards and
they no longer have the install ISO's on line, but they are available to paying customers.
BUT, belive me when I say this, SuSE would be more then happy to take down their FTP
server and all other mirrors. But they cant cuz Linus would have nothing to do
with it. and the GPL will not allow  it. Their says would be numbered if they
pulled a stunt like that. So you can still get SuSE for free off the FTP server,
BUT not in an install ISO form. You have have to download it package by
package. And this is where they get really shitty about some things. 

1) There is no file that lists the dependencies of the packages, you just have to
either know what needs what or take guesses.

 2) The help for installing from the ftp it self or downloading from the ftp to you
hard drive and installing is slim to none.

3) Seince there is no help and no way of knowing the package dependencies,
peeps on fast lines and lots of hdd space will just download the whole thing
(most peeps on slower lines will give in right there and either go to some other
distro or go out and buy SuSE (the WHOLE point behind whats happening))
But after the users with fast lines (and some with slow) get the distro off the
FTP go to make ISO's and burn them to install that way.... But wait a minute
there is nothing that tells you what files and dirs go where on the cds. Some
might give up here and go to other distros or just go out and buy SuSE (Again,
the whole point behind it). 

4) Those that decide to continue and try to install from their hard drive, or install
off the FTP its self find there is next to nothing in the help files and the "SuSE
book" on how exactly to go about it. (As a matter of fact, I think i'm going to
write a help file on this and place it some where else other then SuSE). They run
into problems and cant get help from SuSE about it and there really isn't
anything anybody anywhere to help them. So what happens? Thats right, the
end user gets throws his hands up in disgust and either goes to another distro or
goes out and buys it (And again, The WHOLE POINT behind it)

5) the devious little bastards tarballed the inst-sys dir and kinda whispered it to
people so they really wouldnt pay much attention and keep gettin errors on the
install and give up and go out and buy it (Once again, THE WHOLE POINT
behind it) What I mean when I say whisper it to people. They cleverly place
about a readme in the root dir of the ftp distro right next to about 4 other
readmes that are the EXACT SAME THING over and over, so you see the last
read me and think, "its says the samn thing as the others", and move on. When
in reality, its not the samn as the others and  its the ONLY thing out there that
tells you that the inst-sys dir is tarballed and needs to be extracted inorder for
the install to work.

6) The only ISO on thir FTP is the live eval ISO. And this isn't even really
worth the CD you put it on. And all it is, is a bootable version of SuSE that runs
off the CD rom drive. In Windows terminoligy you could call it the "Try before
you Buy" version of SuSE. Which you download slap it on a CD, boot from it,
and go "Wow, this is awesome. I think I'll install this" at which point they begin
searching the FTP for an install ISO so they either decide to do a package by
package download (In wich case, please see #'s 1-5) or they say "Crap no
install ISO, and I dont know the first thing about downloading and installing
Linux package by package, and there is nothing that helps me on this". Now
there are 2 directions the user can go from here.

 	a) The users opens his wallet and says "Fark, I dont have enough to go out and
	buy this. Well I'll go check out the Mandrake  or Red Hat site." And thats it,
	SuSE has lost the customer.  or......

	b) The user opens his wallet and says "Damn i'm sittin fat!", user glances at
	watch. "Still have enough time to run up to Best Buy or Circut City and buy
	it!!" The user then hauls ass to the nearist retail store where they can buy SuSE
	and do so.  

and once again... THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT BEHIND ALL OF THIS

So fuck these money hungry bastards, you've spent all this time and hard drive
space getting it. Now you gonna sit there and install it, and I dont care if you
have to stay up all night and all day (like I had to do) in order to get it working.
cuz fuck SuSE for they have turned into. Well go out and buy the next version.
But DAMN them all to hell and back untill then, Were getin 7.3 for free. :)

NOTE: Good fellow SuSE users, belive me when I say this, SuSE used to never
EVER be this way. I dont know fully know what the f*k happened to them. And
belive me when I say this, The SuSE linux distro really is somethign special,
and its not their software or their distro i'm angry at. Its SuSE them selfs. I've
been using SuSE for a number of years now and I do belive in supporting good
software  I have and will still support SuSE. And I understand that what they
have done has been for development costs. And I understand in a push to buy
rather then to download. I Have bought SuSE in the past, and will buy in the
future. Its just this is not a push, this is more like a violent shove to buy their
product. And understand where I'm comeing from, I started using suse back in
1997. and back then there was no push to buy it. In fact there were not that
many distro's AND NOT A SINGLE ONE PUSH YOU TO BUY. You could
buy it, if you chose, and if you did buy it, you paid for the cost of the CD and
for shipping and handling. THAT WAS IT! And they actually encouraged you
to give it out to other people for free. Times have indeed changed and thats a
WHOLE nother topic of discussion. But anyways, on to what I was saying. I
dont make alot of money, and I sure there are a lot of others out there just like
me, and I cannot afford to keep droppin all this damn money on a new SuSE
distro EVERTIME one comes out. I DO belive in supporting them and I DO
support them WHEN I CAN. alright, nuff fuckin said lets get on with this..

Ok.

I sounds like you have downloaded it onto a windows partition. No problems
there. Thats how I did it. BUT you do need to know what partition it is on
inorder to do an install from hdd

ok lets say we  downloaded everything to:

d:\suse

so inside d:\suse looks like this:

/disks
/dosu
/dosutils
/full-names
/setup
/suse
/unsorted
archives.gz
autorun.inf
copying
copying.tex
COPYRIGHT
COPYRIGHT.yast
index.gz
liesmich
liechmich.dos
ls-lR.gz
pubring.pgp
readme
readme.dos
readme.ftp
setup.exe
setup.mnu
setup.pif

thats the root dir or DIRectory
now you need to change dir into the suse dir
inside there you'll find a BUNCH of dirs atarting with a1 and ending with zg1
(or some crap like that) and 1 tar.gz file or tarball called inst-sys.tar.gz. In
windows. I extracted it with winzip 8.0 and it worked fine. but when you extract
it, do it in the suse dir so it will make its own dir.  

So in winzip you would extract inst-sys.tar.gz to:

d:\suse\suse

and the archive will make its own folder under d:\suse\suse called inst-sys so
when winzip is done, you can go into the new dir and look around if you like,
nothing else to do here though. But make sure the inst-sys dir is at:

d:\suse\suse\inst-sys

Also under the dir d:\suse\suse there will be another folder named images you
need a few things in here inorder to install. 

1) A kernel. I got the kernel k_deflt.rpm or in the readme it is shown as k_deflt_24:  Pentium-optimized kernel 2.4
2) I really trully do not know if you need the inf file for the kernel you get or
    not, lets be safe and get it anyway
3) You will need the file initdisk.gz
4) you will need the file root

with those 4 things you are almost ready to install

Next you need to know what partition it is on.  This I really cant tell you I will
try to give you as much help as I can on finding it out though, but a little trial
and error may be needed to figure it out. It really depends on how your hard
drives and cd roms are setup as to what partition you will install from. I'll show
a simple setup. 1 hard drive that has 2 dos partitions and 1 cdrom drive

hda           or your hard drive
      |
      c:\       or in linux hda1
      |
    extended dos partiton    or in linux hda2
      |
     d:\ (logical dos drive)   or in linux hda3

hdb         or your cdrom drive 

your first hard drive will be called hda (or if i remember right Hard Disk (or
drive) a )) your first partition on your first hard drive will be hda1. Your second
partition gets a little trickier. In dos, inorder to get a second partition you have
to creat 2 partitions to make 1. Yes scrath your head a little it makes no sence to
me either. You have to creat the Extended Dos Partition and then you can creat
the Logical Dos Drive. In windows, it will view both of those partitions as one.
in linux they are viewd as 2 seprate partitions. The Extended Dos Drive is
viewd as hda2 and the Logical Dos Drive is viewed as hda3. BUT you can only
mount 1 of them. And that is the logical dos drive or hda3 in linux.  Your cdrom
drive is removable media and is viewed as just hdb. 

Thats a simple setup. now throw another cd/dvd rom drive and another hard
drive in there and the partition tables can get rather confusing to a beginner. It
all depends on what is where and how things are jumpered on how it will effect
the partition tables. 

For example: on my computer I have 2 cdroms and 2 hard drives this is how it is
setup

hda is my primary hard drive and is jumpered for it
hdb is my cdrom drive jumpered as primary slave
hdc is my secondary hard drive and is jumpered for it
hdd is my cd burner jumpered for secondary slave

this is how this can help. When I downloaded SuSE off their FTP it was on my
second hard drive. So when I went to install it, i knew it was somewhere on
hdc. now lets try to add some partitions to this table.

hda
     |
     hda1    or c:\
     |
     hda2     had linux on it windows never know it was there
     |
     hda3    linux swap windows never knew it was there
hdb   cdrom drive
hdc
     |
     hdc5 (dont ask me how it got named hdc5 as it was the ONLY partition on    
            the drive.) or d:\ in windows
hdd    cdburner 

It can be confusing. But at least try to remember everything on the first hard
drive is hda, if there is a second hard drive on the same daisy chain as the mast
hard drive then everything on it is hdb. If your like me, My hard drives are on
two diffrent dasiy chains and there is a cdrom inbetween them. So my primary
hard drive is hda my secondary hard drive is hdc. So if you are set up like me
and you downloaded suse on to your secondary hard drive then it will be some
where on hdc. your just gonna have to do trial and error untill you get it. I hate
to say it, but thats how that goes.

once you have a good idea of what partiton it is on you can make the bood disk
(already sounds like you did that so we will skip that) make sure the floppy is in
the floppy drive (in linux the floppy drives are called fd0 for primary fd1 for
secondary and so on) and then reboot.

when you boot off the floppy, is fists asks you what resolution you want, you
can just hit enter or select you resolution you'd like to use during the install and
then hit enter. The next time the boot stops and asks you for anything it wall say

Please make sure CD1 is in the CDROM drive
            <ok>                             <cancel>

cd's who needs stinking cd's? hit cancel.
Bam, were are kick into the old text base install of SuSE. and the next question
is language. So select the language you would like to use. and hit enter. Up next
is keybard keymap, select your keymap then hit enter.   

Now you are at the main menu and it should look something like this

settings
system information
kernel modules (system information)
start installation/system
exit/reboot
power off

you first need to go under settings
under settings you will see

language
display
keymap
debug (expert)

we need to go to debug (expert)
under there you will find

animation
load root image into radick
enter root image
installation system
specify NFS port
bootp timeout

here are the settings you need

animation = yes
load root image into ramdisk = yes
enter root image  = here you have to tell it where the root image is. and seince
                                we are still using d:\suse as the example this will be 
                                 /suse/suse/images/root    edit to fit your setup

installation system = remember inst-sys.tar.gz you had to extract? well you        
                                   have to tell yast where that extracted to  also. Again           
                                  seince d:\suse is the example the correct filed would be
                                   /suse/suse/inst-sys      edit to fit your setup

specify NFS port = leave this blank
bootp timeout = leave this as it is

hit the ok button. then go back into the Main Menu. If you need to load any
special modules now would be the time to do it, go to kernel modules if you
have to load modules. If you only have an IDE hard drive and are installing
from a windows partition, you shouldnt need any.

now back at the Main Menu
goto Start Installation/System

from there go to: Start Installation/Update
from there  goto: Harddisk

and this is where you need to know what partition you downloaded suse to. you
have tho have this correct as well as Enter Root Image and Installation System
correctly pointing to where everything is. so you downloaded suse to
d:\oogabooga\suse\ the the fields for Enter Root Image would be
/oogabooga/suse/suse/images/root   and for inst-sis it would be
/oogabooga/suse/suse/inst-sis and if you downloaded suse to hdc2 then the
correct field for the partition would be /dev/hdc2. You'll know when you get it
right because it will find and load the root image into the ramdisk and the
installation will continue and I belive the first this it asks is which hard drive are
you going to install to. But my fingers are about to fall off so i hope you can
make it through the install after you get everything mounted and the root image
loaded. If not, let me know, I'll walk you though that too.

another way to aproach this is with the live eval cd. Now this is untested as far
as I know. But Download the live eval iso. Burn it. Make sure to have it placed
in first cdrom drive. reboot. set bios to boot from cdrom. computer will  boot off
the cdrom. once booted set up hard disk (partition and format). mount it. then cd
to it, then mkdir / , then copy EVERYTHING from the cd to into the / dir. once
everthing is over, cd to /etc (on hard drive of course) and  edit the file fstab edit
accordingly. oh yeah, you might want to have lilo downloaded on another
partition, cuz your really gonna need it. extract lilo, cd into lilo dir. read some
readmes in there to learn how to installl. install it.. reboot. pray BUT I WILL
MENTION IT AGAIN!! I HAVE NOT TRIED THAT METOD OF INSTALL
AND I DONT KNOW ANY ONE WHO HAS SO I DONT KNOW IF IT
WILL WORK OR NOT. YOU PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK HERE.

if someone gets this working, let me know :)

-one_inch

one_inch@hotpop.com

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