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Third Thoughts
n00b
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 3
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 Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 2:52 am Post subject: Booting the Install CD from a USB CD ROM Drive |
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I'm looking to install Gentoo on an ancient laptop I've got. How ancient? So ancient it doesn't actually have a built in CD-Rom Drive. I've got a Plextor External USB CD-RW drive. The lappy's bios only supports booting from the hard drive, a floppy drive, and a LAN. I tried using Smart Boot Manager, but it doens't seem to recognize my USB CD-ROM. I've done some googling, but I've yet to find a floppy boot manager that supports USB CD-ROM devices. Anyone know of a boot diskette that I don't, or anyone have another solution on how I can get Gentoo up and running?
~Andrew S. |
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mw007
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Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 260
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| Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 3:00 am Post subject: |
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Try looking through here: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/?catid=install
I would suggest looking at the Alternative Installtions page. That may have something you can use.
If you still can't get something to work after reading that, repost on here and we'll figure something out. |
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Third Thoughts
n00b
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 3:11 am Post subject: |
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| mw007 wrote: |
I would suggest looking at the Alternative Installtions page. That may have something you can use.
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That's where I found out about Smart Boot Manager. There aren't any other recommendations on that page that seem applicable to my situation. I'm still sorting through google results to see if I can find something like Smart Boot Manager, but with USB CD-ROM support.
~Andrew S. |
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Third Thoughts
n00b
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:53 am Post subject: |
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Okay quick update. I managed to make some progress by getting a hold of the debain boot floppies. The Debian installation process seems to detect my CD-ROM drive. However, it becomes unhappy when it realizes that inside the drive there's a Gentoo CD as opposed to a debain. I suppose the bright side is that I can have at least a linux distro on this laptop, but I'd rather it be Gentoo than debain for two reasons.
A) I've heard source based distros are faster, and considering this thing has 64MB of ram, I need as much speed as I can get.
B) I already have a debain based distro(Ubuntu) on my desktop, I want to play around with something new.
What I may do is go ahead and install debain. Do some partitioning to make space for gentoo. Install Gentoo from debain (I think something in the alt installation guide explained how to do that), then wipe debian once I'm done. But I dunno if I'm up for doing that tonight, it may have to wait until tomorrow.
~Andrew S. |
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mw007
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Joined: 08 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 5:35 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know why I didn't remember this before...
You could also try Knoppix. I've never done this personally, but I've heard people talking about booting into a Knoppix floppy and loading the Gentoo environment from the CD once everything is initialized. I don't know the procedures/commands to do this. That may help you in your google searching. |
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pieter_parker
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Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 1488
Location: 127.0.0.1
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 7:58 am Post subject: |
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i have a usb problem too
i have the gentoo 2006.0 livecd and will boot from a usb cd/dvd drive
booting the kernel wirh
than comes this
| Code: |
the root block device is unspecified or not detected
please specify a device to boot, or "shell" for a shell...
boot() ::
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i have read here in this forum that i must enter the shell, and type there "udevstart" "exit" and than "/dev/ram0" -enter-
but i does not work for me
i will use the gentoo 2006.0 livecd with the grafic installer |
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dontremember
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Joined: 21 Sep 2002
Posts: 151
Location: Oklahoma
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 8:35 am Post subject: |
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| mw007 wrote: | I don't know why I didn't remember this before...
You could also try Knoppix. I've never done this personally, but I've heard people talking about booting into a Knoppix floppy and loading the Gentoo environment from the CD once everything is initialized. I don't know the procedures/commands to do this. That may help you in your google searching. |
I just recently did something similar on a headless system. Well, not entirely headless - it has a quad display adaptor, but I don't have the cable to convert DVI -> VGA. Anyway, I couldn't see what was going on with the CD boot, and I suspected it was booting from disk (Win2K), so I went out and grabbed a copy of Tom's Root Boot and loaded up a floppy.
The install kit comes with a script to unpack the floppy image and repack it, so I was able to enable login on both a serial port and a telnet session. Booted it, waited, waited, waited, eventually got a login prompt.
Tom's Root Boot comes with enough tools to partition the disk, make ext2 partitions, mount them, mount the CD, unpack the stage and chroot into it. I came across a couple of oddities which were due to Tom's kernel being 2.2.something, but I managed to get past them and now have a working system. Except for the frickin' displays...  |
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pieter_parker
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Joined: 07 Aug 2006
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Location: 127.0.0.1
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 11:13 am Post subject: |
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| what must i do to install the gento livecd 2006.0 from my usb cd drive? |
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mw007
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Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 260
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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| pieter_parker wrote: | | what must i do to install the gento livecd 2006.0 from my usb cd drive? |
Where have you looked to find how to do this? Perhaps someone here knows of a URL you could take a look at, if you haven't already found it.
Also, your BIOS needs to support booting from a USB CD-ROM drive in order for it to work. I have a fairly new laptop and it doesn't do that. |
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Dralnu
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Joined: 24 May 2006
Posts: 1919
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Third Thoughts wrote: | Okay quick update. I managed to make some progress by getting a hold of the debain boot floppies. The Debian installation process seems to detect my CD-ROM drive. However, it becomes unhappy when it realizes that inside the drive there's a Gentoo CD as opposed to a debain. I suppose the bright side is that I can have at least a linux distro on this laptop, but I'd rather it be Gentoo than debain for two reasons.
A) I've heard source based distros are faster, and considering this thing has 64MB of ram, I need as much speed as I can get.
B) I already have a debain based distro(Ubuntu) on my desktop, I want to play around with something new.
What I may do is go ahead and install debain. Do some partitioning to make space for gentoo. Install Gentoo from debain (I think something in the alt installation guide explained how to do that), then wipe debian once I'm done. But I dunno if I'm up for doing that tonight, it may have to wait until tomorrow.
~Andrew S. |
Edit: Lol. Ok, didn't read the post fully.
[quote=Me, before reading post fully, and just responding]Ok, try this:
Install a minimal Debain system onto your laptop (enough to read a CD)
Modify your hard drive partitioning scheme when you instal Debain to install Debian onto what would end up being your /home partition (if you use one)
Install Gentoo on the leading partitons
Reformat your /home(debain) partition (What you might want to do it install Debian on the very last few sectors of your HDD, then when you get Gentoo installed, wipe out Debian and merge that into your /home partition, which I'm guessing will tail your other partitions).[/quote]
I'll leave that there anyways, along with my few extra comments.
Also, with 64MB of RAM, just for a warning: Gentoo compiles everything, so you're laptop my be down for days if you install something like OOo, and try to keep it updated. For some possibly handy info: See if you can get distcc server to run in Ubuntu and use your laptop and your desktop to compile everything, otherwise you may be kinda screwed.
Also, I would also suggest experinemting with CFLAGS, and be very particular with your USE flags. The less you have to run, the better.
_________________
The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner. |
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pieter_parker
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Joined: 07 Aug 2006
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Location: 127.0.0.1
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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my bios does support booting from usb cd drive, but it is the gentoo livecd they will not boot correctly from my usb cd drive
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-320660-highlight-.html there have i read it
1. insert the liveCD into your external cdrom
2. type "gentoo doscsi [enter]"
3. shell
4. type "udevstart [enter]" and exit
5. type "/dev/ram0 [enter]"
it work not with 2005.1, it works with 2005.0 |
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Dralnu
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Joined: 24 May 2006
Posts: 1919
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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use the minimal install CD. The grpahical one is a bit buggy, but the minimal one works great for me.
If it supports booting from a USB CDROM, it may be the CD you are trying.
_________________
The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner. |
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sageman
Guru
Joined: 04 May 2005
Posts: 363
Location: New Hampshire
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Third Thoughts wrote: | I suppose the bright side is that I can have at least a linux distro on this laptop, but I'd rather it be Gentoo than debain for two reasons.
A) I've heard source based distros are faster, and considering this thing has 64MB of ram, I need as much speed as I can get.
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Well, I'm afraid that a source based distro will be a serious pain in your arse if you've only got 64 MB of RAM. If you have another computer, I'd actually (cross)compile gentoo on there, make everything packages and then install those packages on the laptop. At least for the initial install, because otherwise you may be compiling on the laptop for a couple of weeks (literally).
But, if you're gonna compile it on the laptop, more power to you, have fun and welcome to gentoo! |
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Installing Gentoo
