On Thu, 2004-05-20 at 22:12, Proctor wrote:
Thanks Mike,
Yes, i have loaded the modules for the specific cdrom (mirosolutions backpack). The final (i think final) parameter that must be set fails however, with the default settings (drive0=0x378). The installer responds "failed to mount cdrom" when i attempt to go ahead with the install. Do i need to manually mount the cdrom? Do i have to tell the kernel that the drive is there? It seems to know, but if i'm missing something, do tell. One thing i'm kind of uncertain of is how to use the root prompt to give instructions to the kernel. Only some of the commands seem to work, and i'm quite unfamiliar with the procedure. For instance "fdisk" returns "not found". Attempting to run certain commands that i do find in some of the various folders has no effect, or returns "not found". One thing that did work was "swapon", thereby enabling me to activate swap for loading of the network module. I did, however, need to use a boot disk from another dist to create the partition table in order to create a swap partition to activate. Is all this normal, or unusual? If it's normal i won't worry too much. Should it be this difficult to install on an older machine though? I can install windows with a standard dos boot disk without any hassle whatsoever. insert bootdisk, fdisk, partition, format, insert cdrom driver floppy, load driver, install from cdrom. Very simple. Is it normal for linux to be quite a bit more difficult?
Can anyone recommend any Good Reference Books for what i am attempting to do? Something that explains what is going on, and why we need to make each step? So far the manuals i have read on linux's do not touch on any of the issues i am experiencing.
As far as I know, once the module is loaded you should be able to access the CD-Rom. I'm afraid that I cannot be of any great help now. Mike