Subject: DEBIAN Linux on floppy disks

From: Fritz Ilg <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 18:54:01 -0700

Hi Debian Linux users:

I am a Linux novice and I have a Slackware Linux distribution installed
on my Toshiba 105CS Satellite, which works fine. I am planning to install
DEBIAN Linux on to my Laptop. Unfortunately I have no CD-ROM drive avail- 
able with this Laptop which make this attempt impossible.
I have one CD-ROM with the DEBIAN Linux distribution on it. As I am able
to run this CD on a Windows-based PC-System WIN95 on a seperat computer I 
thought it might be possible to make floppys, like I did with the 
Slackware distribution. I soon realized that a lot of files are too large 
to fit onto the disk.

Is there anybody out there ...who can give me some advises how I can
solve this problem.

Many thanks to all of you.

Fritz Ilg

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From: Paul Wade <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 20:18:54 -0400

> Many thanks to all of you.

I did my first install from CD-ROM by bringing the hard drive to my 
WIN95
workstation. I used the rawrite.exe program from dos to make the install
floppy set. Then I put the target drive in as drive "C:" and installed
Linux on it. Of course, the laptop disk drive might be incompatible with
the workstation disk controller.

If that won't work for you then tell us more:
Do you have any way of connecting the machines?
ethernet? serial ports? parallel ports?

Paul Wade

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From: [email-masked] (Billy Chow)
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 15:41:25 BST

>>>>> "Steve" == Steve Preston <[email-masked]> writes:

Steve> You need to 'split' the .deb files that are too big.  This
Steve> requires dpkg-split, but I am not aware of a WIN95 version of
Steve> this.  If you created a (relatively minimal) linux partition on
Steve> your cdrom machine, then you could split the .deb files and
Steve> copy them to floppies.

Maybe it's easier to find a MSDOS port of GNU tar and then tar the
required packages on multiple volumes which are then transferrable to
the laptop.

--
Billy C.-M. Chow          [email-masked]          Debian Linux

---

From: Andreas Kerzmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 16:59:21 +0200

> required packages on multiple volumes which are then transferrable to

What about setting up a serial link between the Win-PC and the laptop?
I honestly do not know wether Win95 likes serial links, but I definitly
know that my old 286 running DOS 6.0 is even able to export nfs over
serial line. I suggest using a zmodem protocol or something similar.
Any ideas?

Andreas.

---

From: Steve Preston <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 10:31:23 -0400

>>>>> Fritz Ilg <[email-masked]> writes:

> Is there anybody out there ...who can give me some advises how I can

You need to 'split' the .deb files that are too big.  This requires
dpkg-split, but I am not aware of a WIN95 version of this.  If you
created a (relatively minimal) linux partition on your cdrom machine,
then you could split the .deb files and copy them to floppies.

-- 
Steve Preston ([email-masked])

---

From: Steve Preston <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 14:01:05 -0400

>>>>> Andreas Kerzmann <[email-masked]> writes:

> serial line. I suggest using a zmodem protocol or something similar.

I think the 'tar' idea has the best chance of succeeding.  The serial
link idea would require less physical effort (I put almost all the
.deb files under 'unstable' onto floppies; it took over 80), but you'd
have to get either slip, ppp or something up between Win95 and linux.
I don't know if the kernel and utilities on the debian boot/root disks
are capable of slip or ppp, so you may have to install a few packages
before it would be feasible.  Probably all the packages you need for
this would fit on floppies though.

---

From: Kevin M Bealer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 06:25:56 -0400 (EDT)

On Wed, 12 Jun 1996, Steve Preston wrote:

(clip)
> then you could split the .deb files and copy them to floppies.

Why are there always utilities to do this?

What would happen if I wrote a simple program to output the file in volumes
of a certain size, and then used "cat" to stick em end to end?

[email-masked]
You have new mail in /dev/null

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From: Rick Hawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 13:31:13 CDT

> of a certain size, and then used "cat" to stick em end to end?

that works.  I had to do this a few times.

If you already have a unix somwehere, that simple program already
exists; it's part of the base debian installation.  

Anyway, while i had one of the two machines talking to the network,
while still working to get the second talking to the network, i had to
move files.

Anyway, the "split"  program creates files named xaa, xab, etc.  I moved
these by floppy, anc then "cat xa* > perl.deb" (or whatever), and dpkg
would install.  also, this is useful for putting the base1_1.tgz file in
place on a drive rather than using the 3 disk set.

Or (perhaps better), put a dos partition where you will ultimately put
your swap file, boot with the first 2 disks, make the debian partition,
hit alt-f2 to get a shell, then copy the files over:
(assuming the swap/dos partition is hda1, and the linux is hda2)

mount -t msdos /dev/hda1 /mnt
mkdir /target/debfiles
cp /mnt/* /target/debfiles
umount /mnt

Then boot dos, use dos fdisk to delete the partiton, reboot linux, make
& initialize your swap partiton, *be sure to use mount pre-existing*
linux partition rather than "initialize".

follow the instructons, and when it gets to the dselect program, tell it
to install from an already mounted partition, and answer for each type
that it asks that the files are in /debfiles, and that the Packages file
is "none"

rick

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From: Kevin M Bealer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 18:56:24 -0400 (EDT)

> that works.  I had to do this a few times.

I actually have a similar problem myself...

I would like to back up by debian system with my non-linux-compatible tape
drive.  My theory is that I can dump it in say 20 MB volumes to a file on a
DOS partition, and use dos to throw it onto the tape.  The tape can hold
about 400 MB  --> the size limit will come from how much space I can free in
my Win95 partition which is only 100 megs and is nearly full.

I have read the manpage for afia -- it supports volumes.  Is there any way I
can tell it to output only "volume 3" once and next time only "volume 4"?
I am thinking I should have it dump to a symlink and make the symlink point
to /dev/null for all but the volume I want each time... is this feasible?

Is there a better way?

(Of course the _right_ way would be to write a driver for my tape drive.)

(I expect to mount my system readonly to do this, but I could mount a
ramdisk to hold the symlink... still a pita probably.)

[email-masked]
"The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the
flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language."

---

From: Ed Donovan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 96 23:11 EDT

Kevin - 

That'd work; I had this grim problem.  If fact (beware: tale of
hardship :-)  to install most of my Debian system, I had to sneakernet
the .deb files via msdos floppies from a _Mac_ with net access, and
which could only fit ~850K on the disks.  So, I ran 'split' on them on
my unix ISP first, and ultimately catted them back together under Linux.
This reminds me of what Dr. McCoy accused the transporter of doing to his
molecules.

Second topic: I've been swamped lately, and haven't thanked you for
some of your help messages; I've really appreciated them.

-- 

Ed Donovan			[email-masked]

p.s.  Now that I've gone online to mail this, I see other answers, but,
gots to thank you anyway ;-)