[Cialug] Installing Debian

[James Shoemaker]

kendall bailey wrote:
> I run Mandrake 9.1 and would like to try Debian.  I downloaded a recent 
> netinst ISO for sarge, burned and tried to boot it, but no go.  The bios 
> is set to try the CD-ROM, and I've always installed Mandrake by booting 
> this way.  I checked the md5sum of the iso prior to burning.  The CD 
> contents look like this
> 
> debian@  install/    pics/        README.mirrors.html  tools/
> dists/   isolinux/   pool/        README.mirrors.txt
> doc/     md5sum.txt  README.html  README.txt
> 
> I've tried writing the boot.img to a floppy and boot that.  I get a 
> Debian logo and boot: prompt, but when I hit enter, it says the boot 
> failed, with no other info.
> 
> Am I doing something wrong? Should I get the first full CD rather than a 
> netinst CD?
> 
> btw, the machine is an Athlon 1GHz with 256MB RAM, K7T turbo 
> motherboard.  Everything works under MDK9.1.

	I would guess some sort of issue with the netinst iso on your machine, 
get the first ISO of the install set using jigdo and start there.  Once 
you get base installed from the CD you can complete the install from the 
network.  As for the floppies, Debian's boot loader is extremely picky 
about floppies (no bad sectors allowed).  You may want to do a linux26 
instead of just pressing enter to get a 2.6 kernel when booting from the CD.

James