Installation from a DOS partition

Support knowledgebase (tbraza_dosinst)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: Versions since 7.0

Request:

You want to copy Linux completely or in parts from a DOS partition to your harddrive to install on it.

Requirements:

You have already installed DOS, Windows or OS/2 and you know, that Linux does not support your cdrom drive. You have enough space on your DOS or Windows partition (Fat/Fat32) and your system comes with sufficient memory.

Procedure:

This is how you should copy all the required files to the hard drive (if you do not want to carry out the following steps individually, the batch file lhdsetup.bat in the directory \dosutils may be of help to you; you may run lhdsetup.bat with options for directory, CD drive and kernel e.g.: lhdsetup c:\emil d k_deflt):

Note:

Since SuSE 7.2 the compressed root image is not part of \suse\images on CD1 (due to capacity reasons). You may download it from our ftp server (or a mirror site). Even if you want to use lhdsetup you have to create a directory \emil\suse\images and copy root to it.

  1. Create a directory to where the files should be copied. It doesn't matter what it is called, in our example it is named \emil.
  2. Beneath the directory \emil you will need another directory, suse, and there in turn, at least the directories a1, images and setup. These are necessary for the base installation of Linux. Create these directories now.
  3. Copy the files from \suse\a1 of the first CD to \emil\suse\a1 on your hard drive: if you have enough space on your DOS partition then you can copy the complete tree, \suse from the CD to \emil\suse.
  4. In \suse\images select a kernel which supports your hardware. More detailed information about which kernel supports which hardware can be found in \suse\images\readme.dos.
  5. Copy this kernel to \emil\suse\images. A kernel consists of four files (see above): the kernel without an extension and those files with the extensions .ikr, .inf and .map. If space on your hard drive is not an issue, you can copy all the kernels into this directory. You can then choose your kernel later on.

  6. Copy the files \suse\images\root and \suse\images\initdisk.gz to \emil\suse\images.
  7. Copy \suse\setup\loadlin.exe to \emil\suse\setup.
  8. Then you must unpack the file \suse\images\root and copy it to \emil\suse\setup\inst-img; to do this, you should use the DOS version of gzip from the directory \dosutils\gzip of the CD:

    C:>cd \emil\suse
    C:>d:\dosutils\gzip\gzip -dc images\root >setup\inst-img

    This file is rather extensive, but it is only necessary during the first installation. When the base system is up and running, you can install additional packages from a DOS partition; afterwards the file inst-img can be removed.
  9. Create the directory \emil\suse\setup\descr and copy all files from \suse\setup\descr to it.
  10. If there is some space left on your hard drive, you can copy \suse\setup\du to \emil\suse\setup\du, which you have to create in advance. These files are not really necessary but will later help you to show you how much space is left and how much is already occupied. If you have enough space, then this is quite useful.
  11. You now have everything that is essential for installing Linux on your hard drive. But all other software is still missing. Since your CD-ROM is not supported by Linux, you have to install everything step by step, which means that you have to copy everything you want to the hard drive, install it from there using YaST, and then you have to delete it again from the hard drive. You don't have to do that right now, but if you already know what you're going to use, you can start now: just create the corresponding directory in \emil\suse and copy the relevant files there. You can find all packages with their contents in the online documentation of the CD or in the package descriptions.
  12. Now the installation can begin. When linuxrc asks for the source medium, you should enter `hard drive', and the question about the hard drive partitions is answered with the device of your DOS partition. This is usually /dev/hda1 or /dev/sda1 if DOS resides on the first primary partition. If you stuck to the example above, the source medium ­ this is the next question ­ should be specified as /emil. Then the installation proceeds.

Under no circumstances you should, if you will be asked how to partition, specify the `Use whole hard disk' ­ this would undo all your preparations.


Keywords: INSTALL, DOS, CDROM, INSTALLATION, DISK, HARDDISK

Categories: YaST

SDB-tbraza_dosinst, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 28. Mai 2001
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 15. Mai 2002 by ast (sdb_gen 1.40.0)