[TAG] Debian Installation

[Thomas Adam]

On Mon, Oct 23, 2006 at 10:07:20AM +0530, Ramanathan Muthaiah wrote:
> Ifso, then I have wasted two CDs.

I've only been partially reading this thread, but it seems you've
already made hard work for yourself without doing some very basic
reading off the Debian site about which ISO is for you.

Assuming you have a decent Internet connection all you _need_ is
something like the business ISO (~150MB) which will shove a basic shell
and console on your machine upon which you can then apt-get a load of
stuff fron the 'net.  Conversely, if you don't have an Internet
connection, you can download all 15 ISOs, and create yourself a
distribution from that (or the equivalent DVD ISOs; whichever you
prefer).
 
> OK, I tried this, downloaded the net install version of .iso and
> installed Debian.At the end of installation, it detected other
> operating systems (Fedora core 5) and updated the GRUB.

Of course; this is what _any_ installation should do, rather than blat
it.  ;P
 
> Post-installation status:
> 
> At the time of installation, Debian could not recognize Ethernet card,
> hence installed without networking support; but after installation, am
> able to boot but had to skip the section regd network configuration
> settings.

What card do you have (more importantly what chipset is it?)  You can
find out using the 'lspci' command amongst others.  Note that my only
gripe with the netinstall ISO is that like all the others, they seem to
default to using a 2.4.X kernel by default.  Whilst I can fully see why
this is so, it does force more and more people with esoteric hardware to
use the 'expert' install option just so they can have a 2,6.X kernel.
Alas, not everything backported into 2.4.X at the time of the release.

> Another interesting observation : the system is not able to boot into
> Fedora (which was working before the installation of Debian), the
> system tries to load the kernel and then reboots at some point (which
> am not able to pinpoint).

Then do what anyone else would have done -- get DeadHat to boot into
Single User Mode:

``
Linux S
''

Then you can:

``
telinit 3
''

(Which under DeadRat is everything bar $DISPLAY_MANAGER) and see what
happens.  I suspect though it's booting before it ever reaches Init in
which case it could be that the two kernels are trying to share the same
initrd, or somesuch.

-- Thomas Adam

-- 
"Wanting to feel; to know what is real.  Living is a lie." -- Purpoise
Song, by The Monkees.