Anders, et al -- ...and then Anders Karlsson said... % % On Wed, 2003-07-16 at 12:09, David T-G wrote: % > Hi, all -- % % Lo, *grin* % % > I have a tricky machine -- no CD, no video, no keyboard, no floppy -- on % > which I'd nonetheless like to install SuSE 8.1. The machine is currently % > running a Linux From Scratch build, and I have an alternate root slice % > ready to go with plenty of space in /home for a copy of the DVD. % % How about you make a bootp combined install server and PXE boot over the % network instead? That ought to be one of the better ways to install that % box. Hmmm... That's not a bad idea. I'll have to check to see if the quad card that it has can do a network boot, but that might get me there. Has SuSE yet gotten their equivalent of kickstart going? % % > Any idea how I can proceed? Can I perhaps do a little chroot magic and % > start the install? % % Possibly. You would have to investigate what the bootimage and initrd on % the DVD actually does, and then mimic that. OK. And initrd is just the initial ram disk, which should be an ext2 image, right? % % Rgds, % % -- % Anders Karlsson % Trudheim Technology Limited Thanks & HAND :-D -- David T-G * There is too much animal courage in (play) davidtg@justpickone.org * society and not sufficient moral courage. (work) davidtgwork@justpickone.org -- Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health" http://justpickone.org/davidtg/ Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg!

Anders -- ...and then Anders Karlsson said... % % Afternoon, Hi again! % % > % > I have a tricky machine -- no CD, no video, no keyboard, no floppy -- on ... % > % > Hmmm... That's not a bad idea. I'll have to check to see if the quad % > card that it has can do a network boot, but that might get me there. % % When you boot the machine, does it say anything about Intel PXE What screen? :-) % something or another on the screen? If it does, you should be able to % network boot. Most network cards today can do this. Sounds good. % % > Has SuSE yet gotten their equivalent of kickstart going? % % I think that with SLPro 8.2 there is a way of installing over the % network. I have not investigated this, but I seem to recall it exists. Oooh; that sounds nice. % ... % > OK. And initrd is just the initial ram disk, which should be an ext2 % > image, right? % % The initrd is usually a gzipped image of a ext2 or minix filesystem. Right. % Normal today is ext2. Gunzip the image, loopmount it somewhere and have % a poke around what it does. Look for the linuxrc file as that should be % the first thing that gets run. Ah. Thanks! % % Rgds, % % -- % Anders Karlsson % Trudheim Technology Limited Thanks & HAND :-D -- David T-G * There is too much animal courage in (play) davidtg@justpickone.org * society and not sufficient moral courage. (work) davidtgwork@justpickone.org -- Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health" http://justpickone.org/davidtg/ Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg!

Anders, et al -- ...and then Anders Karlsson said... % % > % When you boot the machine, does it say anything about Intel PXE % > % > What screen? :-) % % Doh! You said it had no video. Silly me. :) *grin* % % Well, if you have to interact with the machine in any way while it % boots, be it configuring network card or giving extra options to the % kernel on boot, perhaps a serial console would work? A null-modem cable % is reasonably cheap, and I am sure the SuSE kernels support serial % consoles. :) The trick is getting the SuSE kernel on there in the first place! The real challenge, I think, will be having a network boot image that looks to the serial port as well as booting from the network anyway. % % If you do install the machine using the SuSE equivalent of kick-start, % let me know how you did it. ;-) Handy to know. Heh :-) The last I heard was that "they were working on one"; I don't even know if such exists yet! % % Regards, % % -- % Anders Karlsson % Trudheim Technology Limited Thanks & HAND :-D -- David T-G * There is too much animal courage in (play) davidtg@justpickone.org * society and not sufficient moral courage. (work) davidtgwork@justpickone.org -- Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health" http://justpickone.org/davidtg/ Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg!

Roger -- ...and then Roger Whittaker said... % % On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, David T-G wrote: % % > Heh :-) The last I heard was that "they were working on one"; I don't % > even know if such exists yet! % % You're probably thinking of autoyast, which is mature and very powerful. % % http://www.suse.de/~nashif/autoinstall/ I might be. Thanks; I'll check it out! HAND :-D -- David T-G * There is too much animal courage in (play) davidtg@justpickone.org * society and not sufficient moral courage. (work) davidtgwork@justpickone.org -- Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health" http://justpickone.org/davidtg/ Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg!

Peter, et al -- ...and then Peter Evans said... % % > I have a tricky machine -- no CD, no video, no % > keyboard, no floppy -- on which I'd nonetheless % > like to install SuSE 8.1. % % One possibility that occurs to me is to attach a video, keyboard, CD % drive, etc., do the installation, and then remove it all. That is a theoretical possibility. However, as I have no available video card, no USB keyboard (it doesn't have a PS/2 kbd or mouse port), and no CD drive handy, I'm pretty much out of luck there. % % (Rather boring, I know.) Boring != bad :-) Thanks & HAND :-D -- David T-G * There is too much animal courage in (play) davidtg@justpickone.org * society and not sufficient moral courage. (work) davidtgwork@justpickone.org -- Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health" http://justpickone.org/davidtg/ Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg!

Carlos, et al -- ...and then Carlos E. R. said... % % % The 03.07.17 at 06:21, David T-G wrote: % % > That is a theoretical possibility. However, as I have no available video % > card, no USB keyboard (it doesn't have a PS/2 kbd or mouse port), and no % > CD drive handy, I'm pretty much out of luck there. % % Then you can remove the hard disk, plug it somewhere else, install, and % plug it back. I did that for my 386SX-20... Not only does that take down my gateway for the time required to install, but I have to get another machine into which I can plug the drive. If I had that, I'd probably have video, kbd, and cd as well :-) % % Notice that the only package that is tuned somewhat to the microprocesor % is the kernel: the rest are just generic pentium nowdays, I think. Makes sense. Tricky to load on a 486, but makes sense :-) % % % Alternatively, I read somewhere that you can use the serial port as a % console (remote), and perhaps even the main one; but I don't know if this % applies to the install. This is configured in inittab. With lilo it's easy to set up a serial console (I even contributed changes to the doc that comes with the kernel, though I don't think they were ever included *sniff*). I don't know if the SuSE disks support it, but without a CD drive from which to boot (not to metion the adventures of makign it boot from CD instead of from the hard drive) it's a moot question anyway. % % -- % Cheers, % Carlos Robinson /me wonders if someone could just build a basic system, tar it up, and send it on for me to spit out and then update via yast... :-D -- David T-G * There is too much animal courage in (play) davidtg@justpickone.org * society and not sufficient moral courage. (work) davidtgwork@justpickone.org -- Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health" http://justpickone.org/davidtg/ Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg!

Carlos, et al -- ...and then Carlos E. R. said... % % The 03.07.17 at 19:30, David T-G wrote: % % > ...and then Carlos E. R. said... % % > % Then you can remove the hard disk, plug it somewhere else, install, and % > % plug it back. I did that for my 386SX-20... % > % > Not only does that take down my gateway for the time required to install, % > but I have to get another machine into which I can plug the drive. If I % > had that, I'd probably have video, kbd, and cd as well :-) % % Well... even on a home network - is it? I'm unsure if you mentioned it - % or a bussiness production machine, upgrading any critical machine live, % without a backup, is a no-no :-) It is, indeed, a home network, and my plan is to install in an alternate partition rather than touch the existing boot slice, but, yes, it is in a critical spot. I simply suffer from server density deficiency! % % > Makes sense. Tricky to load on a 486, but makes sense :-) % % In my case, I used suse 6.4, which assumes a 386. I only neede to % recompile the kernel for the 386. Suse 8.2 I'm unsure if it assumes a 486 % or a 586 for packages. I think that all of the RPMs I see on my 8.1 are 586 or 686. I also have SuSE 6.1 for anything really old, but it's a pain to have to go and compile everything so I just won't go out and get any 486s any time soon! % % > With lilo it's easy to set up a serial console (I even contributed % > changes to the doc that comes with the kernel, though I don't think they % > were ever included *sniff*). % % Good to know I wasn't mistaken. Yep. % % > I don't know if the SuSE disks support it, % > but without a CD drive from which to boot (not to metion the adventures % > of makign it boot from CD instead of from the hard drive) it's a moot % > question anyway. % % You might boot from a diskete, and tell it to use an ftp source. No floppy, either :-) Didn't even think to mention that one... % % % > /me wonders if someone could just build a basic system, tar it up, and % > send it on for me to spit out and then update via yast... % % Now, that is not an absurd idea! Thank you :-) That's actually, although from LFS, how this system was first built. I just don't want to have to keep compiling the world when I want to add nfs support or an http server or whatever, much less staying ahead of security patches. I want Y.O.U. :-) % % You could perhaps make a minimun install on _any_ machine, and then copy % everything by ftp there. Just make sure to use the appropiate kernel, and % to adjust lilo as needed. Yep. My bet is that it shouldn't take more than 100M, and maybe as little as 50M. % % Of course, you always need another machine. As long as you don't try to % install X, it will be fine. Or it should ;-) Yeah :-) % % But don't count on me to tar it up for you! X-) I don't have the % bandwidth, anyway. Oh, phooey. Well, at leat the idea is out there now... Anyone care to install a 586 or 686 (it's a Celeron 550) with a Tulip network driver and enough YaST to talk to an nfs server (my laptop)? I can give you a place to drop the tar.bz2 file, of course. % % % -- % Cheers, % Carlos Robinson Thanks again & HAND :-D -- David T-G * There is too much animal courage in (play) davidtg@justpickone.org * society and not sufficient moral courage. (work) davidtgwork@justpickone.org -- Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health" http://justpickone.org/davidtg/ Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg!

On Sun, 2003-07-20 at 12:54, Carlos E. R. wrote:

Ahhh...! I don't have "HAND" in my acronyms list :-?

Count your blessings. HAND is that perennial #1 of conversation pollution: Have A Nice Day