by Yggdrasil Computing is now beta testing Fall 1995
Plug-and-Play Linux. The beta release is a complete ELF system, and
has a rather interesting graphical system for installing optional
software packages ("tkinstall"). If you would like to beta test the
release over the internet, here is how to do it.
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
You must have a Linux-compatible PC on an ethernet that is
part of the internet. An internet modem link to your home computer is
not sufficient. The computer must have a 3.5" 1.44MB floppy disk drive
as drive A:.
INSTALLATION PROCESS:
To try the network beta release, all you have to do is make
one 3.5" floppy disk and boot from it. The floppy disk image is in
<URL ftp://ftp.yggdrasil.com/pub/products/fall_1995_beta/netboot>.
You can make the boot floppy using either rawrite under DOS
(rawrite2.exe is FTPable from the same directory) or dd under linux,
for example:
dd if=netboot of=/dev/fd0
Once you have made the boot floppy, just reboot from it, and
answer the questions. To answer these questions, you will need the
following information:
1. The numeric internet address of your own machine
2. The network mask of your network (typically 255.255.255.0).
3. Your gateway host (i.e., your router)
4. The numeric internet address of the server you want to
install from (ftp.yggdrasil.com is 192.216.244.5)
5. The location of the installation files on that server
(on ftp.yggdrasil.com, the location is
/home/ftp/pub/products/fall_1995_beta/install).
MAILING LIST
of the Fall 1995 release. You can join this list by sending a message
you send a message containing only "help" in the body, you will get
instructions on how to use the list server. The fall95-beta is users
to submit bug fixes and for mutual technical support.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT (SOLD SEPARATELY)
This beta test is intended for people who will submit bug
*fixes* and not help requests, but we are happy to sell technical
support to users of the beta release who want it (although you should
probably check the errata sheet and the fall95-beta mailing list
first). For technical support prices, please send an empty email
--
Adam J. Richter Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated
(408) 261-6630 "Free Software For The Rest of Us."