hi all - i'm a semi-newbie to linux (i've used slackware for about 6 months but haven't messed around too much), and I really wanted to try debian because of their package management system. the installation process had a lot of warning/error messages and was wondering about a couple of things.
first of all, here's the setup. I have a sony picturebook c1vp with a pcmcia DVD/CD-ROM drive. I'm triyng to install from a vendor's CD set and here are some of the steps i've taken during my install and weird messages I see popping up during installation. i added the boot parameters boot: linux ide2=0x180,0x386 i chose as my installation directory, the /dists/woody/main directory (by the way, is this right?) and chose the woody/main/disks-i386/3.0.13-2001-08-25. i configured no device driver modules , and my installation skipped over the configuration of the pcmcia devices. i then installed the base system at which point, it began retrieving all the packages for the base system. at the end, it tried to "create an empty exim.conf so exim installs okay". at this point i get an error message on my screen. Making /boot/boot.b a sym-link t boot-menu.b . Change the sym-link if you want boot-text.b or boot-compat.b . Running /usr/sbin/liloconfig LILO, the LInux Loader, sets up your system to boot linux directly from your hard disk, without the need for a boot floppy. Hmm. I think you're configuring the base filesystem, and I'm therefore simply going to exit successfully without trying to actually cofigure LILO properly. If you're not doing that, this is an important bug against Debian's lilo package, and should be reported as such... I then hit 'enter' and it continues on, asking me whether or not i want to make my system bootable. I choose yes and am asked to install LILO into the MBR. (Is there any way to NOT install LILO?) I then reboot the system, it looks as it booted up ok (kernel 2.2.19) and continues with the configuration. When I set the timezone, i get the following error message, "neighbor table overflow" several times before it continues on to the password setup screens. After this, I get to the "Debian System Configuration" screen where it asks if I want to use a PPP connection to install the system. I hit 'no' and when it asks for method apt should access the archives. I choose cdrom but it just keeps stating "the kernel doesn't recognize /dev/cdrom/ as a block device". at this point i've tried remounting my cdrom but to no avail. does anyone have any experience with this? I will be trying 'potato' tomorrow but was really hoping to get some of the newer stuff installed all together. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide. s.park
