Syrus, >On Thu, 29 Aug 1996 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> Hi! I want to become one of the enlightened, and start using Linux. >> I've downloaded the Dedian Linux 1.1, and made my floppies with >> rawrite2. >> >> I have no special partitions now. Win95 is just installed on the >> whole 853M HD. The Dedian instructions indicate that setting up >> Linux and Linux Swap Partitions are part of their standard >> installation, but, alas, I did not get near that point before I had >> trouble. > >Hold it here. I can't address the trouble you had with the boot process. >I suggest you look at the document "Installing Debian 1.1 from Floppy >Disk" in the hardware sections to see if that helps.
I have read, printed, and re-read this. It is what got me as far as I am. I went through the F1..F10 keys too. > However, before you >try to install Linux, you must have a free partition on one of your hard >drives. This partition will be erased, and reformatted into two new >partitions. If you have only one HD, you need to do this first: The latest >version of FIPS (free repartitioning program) can non-destructively split >you Win '95 partition if you have enough available space. But, you must >backup your data if it is critical because you may lose it all! Let's >say you've got 853M with 400M of data. You need to defrag your drive so >all the files will be in the first half. Now, you can use FIPS to split >your drive into say, a 500M and 353M partition. When you successfully >run the Linux installation program, it will allow you to erase the second >partition and create say, a 26M swap and a 330M linux partition for your >root filesystem. > >Once you've got your system ready, you should be able to install from one >of the floppy disk sets. Note that when the first disk says 'boot:', you >can press the function keys for some help on hardware specific parameters >for the boot prompt. > >Good luck, and keep trying. Also, backup your stuff or risk losing it. >I've taken that gamble half a dozen times :-), I'll look for FIPS, and try to use it, but I would truly love to know what went wrong with my installation. I've tried newsgroups, this group, and friends. So far no one even has a clue. My system seems pretty generic to me, and my approach is very direct(even if not ideal). Matt
