Re: Install from floppy + USB

Malcolm <malcolm_nospamlewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 22 May 2009 18:02:28 +0000 (UTC)
Rui Pedro Mendes Salgueiro <rps@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I am trying to install a new version of Suse in an old laptop.
The problem is that its CD-ROM is broken and the BIOS is so old
that it doesn't boot from USB (I have an external USB DVD-ROM).

Another thing I could do is to copy the install DVD to the hard-disk
(there is a Windows partition that I will overwrite anyway). Since I
can boot from hard disk partitions, maybe that would work.

Thanks to everyone that replied.

Hi
Have a look at this howto :)
<http://en.opensuse.org/Install_on_PC_that_can%27t_boot_from_CD>

I think it was on this link that I found out where in the installation
DVD were the files (linux and initrd) needed to boot. I copied those to
the root of one of the partitions on the disk and I managed to boot the
installation script (which I think is inside the initrd).

But at first that script didn't find either the USB DVD or the DVD files
which I had copied to another partition or even the files in a network
server. It always failed with errors like "no repository" or "/content
invalid" (? or something similar).

When I was about to give up, suddendly it worked. I don't know why,
(I had changed the line in the /boot/grub/menu.lst but I think to
something I had already used) but finally I managed to install it.

BTW, the configuration I used was:

title SUSE LINUX Install 1
root (hd0,0)
kernel /linux root=/dev/hda1 selinux=0 showopts
initrd /initrd

Now the problem I have is that this last version of Suse (11.1) is
not recognising the graphics chip.

# lspci | grep -i vga
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Motion, Inc. SM720 Lynx3DM (rev b1)

The only errors I am finding on the log are:


(EE) Silicon MotionUnknown EDID version 128

Fatal server error:
AddScreen/ScreenInit failed for driver 0


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