by Hello all.
Some days ago I had to set up a Linux system, wich would be
installed from a CD-ROM drive. I got faced with some strange hardware
behavior, but was able to set up my system, thank's to great effort, and,
of course, to the help I got from comp.os.linux.*
First of all, my CD-ROM drive was never detected by Linux at boot
time. After many tentatives and combinations of boot disks/IRQ/IO Address,
I finally got a stable combination. After, setup could not mount the
CD-ROM drive. Again, I found a solution (probably not the best, but
functions!).
So, I decided to describe the steps I took, to help anyone else
with the same problems. Hope it's useful.
My system:
Hardware:
* Media Vision kit, 16bit sound card (model: ??)
* CD-ROM drive Sanyo model CDR-H94A
* CPU 486-DX2, 66MHz, 12M RAM
* HDD IDE, 510M
* 2 floppy drives (3 1/2" and 5 1/4", HD)
Software:
* Slackware 2.3 distribution for Linux (4-CD set etc)
I divided my HD into 3 partitions, one DOS partition, to install
MS-Windows and related stuff, one for Linux native, and one for Linux swap
space. Their names, under Linux, are /hda1, /hda2 and /hda3, respectively.
On the DOS partition, I installed MS-Windows and the software for
multimedia configuration, so I could easily configure, from DOS, the sound
card and the CD-ROM drive. Obs: neither the sound card, nor the CD drive,
had external jumpers, so configurarion was possible *only* via software.
"Great".
I set up the CD-ROM drive for IO address 0x310 and IRQ 10.
Ok. This is the DOS/Windows side. Let's now look from the Linux
side. With Slackware 2.3 we have many boot disks, with several options for
CD-ROM drives. Well, I tried every one, but none functioned with my CD-ROM
drive!
The boot disk needed for Sanyo H94A (special thanks to Robert
Slackware 3.0 distribution. So I got this boot disk from the Net
(anonymous ftp: ant181.cce.usp.br, directory
/pub/linux/slackware3.0/bootdsks.144).
For the root disk I used TEXT.GZ, also from slackware 3.0
(remember: my distribution is slackware 2.3). Once with these two disks, I
started the installation. At that time, only a DOS partition had been
defined. The reason for using TEXT.GZ is that the error messages remained
on the screen, so debugging was easier.
I booted the system with ASJCD. At the 'boot:' prompt, I typed the
extra arguments 'ramdisk sjcd=0x310'. The '0x310' corresponds to the
CD-ROM drive I/O address. After booting, I inserted the root disk and
continued the process. I created other two partitions, /hda2 for Linux
native and /hda3 for swap space. Partitions created, I rebooted the system
to ensure correct HD operation (as recomendemd for fdisk).
Ok. So, I booted the system once again with ASJCD, passing the
same extra parameters for boot, 'ramdisk sjcd=0x310'. The root disk was
asked and inserted, then I logged as root and immediately *mounted* the
CD-ROM drive:
mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/sjcd /var/adm/mount
I launched this command *twice*, in sequence. Purpose: at the
first time, a kind of device time out error took place. At the second
time, the drive was mounted properly.
After that, I ran setup: source, destination, swap partition etc.
For the source, I used '5- from CD-ROM', of course.
Among the presented options, I used '7- Most IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM
drives'. Then, setup asked for the device name, and I typed
'/var/adm/mount' (remember the 'mount' command, above?).
The message 'There was an error attempting to mount the CD-ROM
device. Would you like to:' was shown. I used '3- Ignore the error and
continue'.
From that point on, setup continued without problems.
If anyone knows a better way for installing Slackware 2.3 from a
Sanyo H94A CD-ROM drive, please let me know. For now, I'll stay with this
"ad hoc" solution.
Bye.
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