Path: sparky!uunet!usc!news
From: ssar...@alnitak.usc.edu (Subrata Sarkar)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Help me install LINUX, Please
Date: 25 May 1992 02:27:48 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 84
Sender: ssar...@alnitak.usc.edu (Subrata Sarkar)
Message-ID: <l21cokINN1ee@alnitak.usc.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: alnitak.usc.edu
Summary: mkfs won't format /dev/hda1
Keywords: stuck
I tried installing Linux today, and ran into trouble.
I hope someone can show me the way.
0. This computer is a 386@40, with 256k cache, with Trident 8900c VGA,
4 Meg RAM and 116 Meg disk.
1. I grabbed rootimage .95a and bootimage .96a from tsx-11.
2. I rawrote them and things worked great.
3. Next, I wanted to put it on my hard disk. This is a brand new
computer and I don't mind destroying the existing DOS.
When I brought up pfdisk, it showed partition 4 as the DOS
partition. I created two new partitions 1 and 2 (these are roughly
19 Meg and the remainder). The old partition 4 refused to go away!
I just said "4 0 0 0" to pfdisk and got rid of it.
I made 1 (DOS) the active partition. Presumably everything on it has
been destroyed.
4. Some of the instructions forgot to mention this: everytime you change
the partition table, you should power off-on.
When I came back, all was well: pfdisk and fdisk both saw the new world
the way I had set it up. I also used the DOS fdisk and it shows
the partitions the way they ought to be.
The trouble is the next step: mkfs refuses to format the Linux
partition! And when I ask him to format the DOS partition, he
reports I/O errors, though he does get started.
My questions:
1) How do I get Linux safely installed on the 100 Meg (/dev/hda2)?
2) How do I get a DOS onto /dev/hda1? I know how to say "format /s" but
things look batty on c: right now. Even though I've changed the
partition table the current DOS thinks things are like they used to
be (i.e., it shows free space ~ 100 Meg even though it's on a
partition of 19 Meg).
3) The instructions really don't explain too well how to setup the
machine so it routinely boots through Linux. I might run DOS once
in a while but mostly I want Linux.
Here is some data:
The disk is type 47 in the setup (American Megatrends Bios). It has
762 cylinders, 8 heads, 39 sectors. (pfdisk insists on thinking there are
only 760 cylinders. Does that matter??).
fdisk says:
/dev/hda1 19948
/dev/hda2 98748
The L function in pfdisk says:
# ID First Last Name start, length
1 6 0 127 DOSbi 39, 39897
2 128 128 760 Minix 39936, 197496
"mkfs -c /dev/hda2 98748" produces the "Usage: " message. This happens
for both cases: active partition = 1 or 2.
"mkfs -c /dev/hda1 19948" starts formatting it!
It shows 6649 inodes,
19948 blocks,
Firstdatazone = 214 (214)
Zonesize = 1024
Maxsize = 26896692
It starts talking:
2144 ...3632 ... ... ... 18672
hard disk I/O error
dev 0301, block 19948
and repeats these two lines twice.
I'm really stuck -- all help will be most appreciated.
Thanks,
-Subrata.
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!sunic2!cs.umu.se!niclas
From: nic...@cs.umu.se (Niclas B|rlin)
Subject: Re: Help me install LINUX, Please
Message-ID: <BotGI1.B8x@cs.umu.se>
Keywords: stuck
Sender: n...@cs.umu.se (News Administrator)
Organization: Dept. of Computing Science, Umea Univ., 901 87 UMEA SWEDEN
References: <l21cokINN1ee@alnitak.usc.edu>
Date: Mon, 25 May 1992 16:58:49 GMT
Lines: 79
In article <l21cokINN...@alnitak.usc.edu> ssar...@alnitak.usc.edu (Subrata Sarkar)
writes:
>I tried installing Linux today, and ran into trouble.
>I hope someone can show me the way.
>
[ ... ]
>
>My questions:
>
>1) How do I get Linux safely installed on the 100 Meg (/dev/hda2)?
>2) How do I get a DOS onto /dev/hda1? I know how to say "format /s" but
> things look batty on c: right now. Even though I've changed the
> partition table the current DOS thinks things are like they used to
> be (i.e., it shows free space ~ 100 Meg even though it's on a
> partition of 19 Meg).
>3) The instructions really don't explain too well how to setup the
> machine so it routinely boots through Linux. I might run DOS once
> in a while but mostly I want Linux.
>
>
[ ... ]
>
>I'm really stuck -- all help will be most appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>
> -Subrata.
I have successfully installed Linux 0.95c+ onto a hard disk. This is what I
know.
I think Linux doesn't work with partitions larger than 60 meg. If you want
to use 100 meg to Linux, partition it into 50/50, use one as a the root
partition and mount the other.
This is how I would do:
1) First partitionate your hard disk USING DOS' FDISK. Try first with a
partition of, say 20MB for Linux. Remember to use primary partitions for
Linux, or if you can't, logical drives on extended partitions.
2) Format all partitions using DOS' format (for safety, it worked for me).
3) Boot Linux and check what fdisk says. Decide which partition to use. As
long as fdisk doesn't say "don't use", I think it will work.
4) Next follow the installation notes in INSTALL.doc found in the INSTALL
directory on your favourite Linux ftp site. If you don't have one, here's
an excerpt:
[Fetched from INSTALL NOTES FOR LINUX v0.95a, Jim Winstead Jr.]
Suppose your device to install Linux on is called /dev/hda2:
# mkfs /dev/hda2 nnn [where nnn is the number of blocks reported
by fdisk]
# mount /dev/hda2 /mnt
# /INSTALL/mktree /mnt
# /INSTALL/mkdev /mnt
# /INSTALL/install /mnt
Edit the word on offset 508 decimal in the boot sector of the boot floppy.
Change it into:
01 03 - /dev/hda1
02 03 - /dev/hda2
.
.
.
41 03 - /dev/hdb1
42 03 - /dev/hdb2
.
.
.
Hopefully this will do, and the next time you boot Linux with your boot
disk, it will use your hard disk partition as root device.
Good luck!
--
Niclas Borlin
Department of Computing Science email: nic...@cs.umu.se
University of Umea phone: (+46) 90-166832
S-901 87 Umea, SWEDEN fax: (+46) 90-166126
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!bloom-beacon!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!daemon
From: ty...@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o)
Subject: Re: Help me install LINUX, Please
Message-ID: <1992May25.190955.22571@athena.mit.edu>
Sender: dae...@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Reply-To: ty...@athena.mit.edu
Organization: The Internet
Date: Mon, 25 May 1992 19:09:55 GMT
Lines: 28
From: nic...@cs.umu.se (Niclas B|rlin)
Date: 25 May 92 16:58:49 GMT
I think Linux doesn't work with partitions larger than 60 meg. If you want
to use 100 meg to Linux, partition it into 50/50, use one as a the root
partition and mount the other.
This is correct; in fact, the limit is 64 meg. From the FAQ:
QUESTION: Linux mkfs doesn't accept the size I give the device,
although I double-checked with fdisk, and it's correct.
ANSWER: Be sure you give the size in BLOCKS, ie 1024 bytes, not
sectors. The mkfs doesn't work for very big partition (over than 64
Megs). Also, make doubly certain that you have the correct partition.
--------
What this means is that you can't specifiy a filesystem size to mkfs
greater than 65534 blocks --- 65535 is -1, which is special. Future
filesystems will likely remove this restriction.
- Ted
P.S. People should read the FAQ!!!! It should be available at your
local FTP site --- if not, it should definitely be available on
tsx-11.mit.edu and nic.funet.fi.