[ale] How can I install RedHat-4.0 from their disks? Some other way?

[John M. Mills]

Hello-

First, apologies for the length and frustrated tone of this note.  Once the
problem is solved, I should settle into a less complaining frame of mind.

I bought the official "boxed set" RedHat-4.0, and I have had some
installation problems.
1) My cm206 CD drive _is_ named in the RH installation program, but then it
   can't be located by the 'boot.img' kernel, so the installation aborts.
   I tried entering my cm206's parameters, and tried jumpering the drive
   to match the port and IRQ values which appear in the kernel source on the
   CD (0x340,11), then entering _those_ values, but still no cigar.
2) I have built a 2.0.18 kernel which correctly identifies my drive, but I
   can't figure out how to build an updated 'boot.img' disk with this kernel.
   The resulting kernel fails to set up a ramdisk, asks for a root disk, and
   then hangs whether or not I change to a (possibly) usable root disk.
3) Some files ('liveboot.img') and some branches of the directory structure
   appear to be missing from the CDROM, so I am reluctant to "shoot my system
   in the head" and try for installation from a disk partition, in case I
   must abort that and then find myself _really_ scr*wed with a non-usable
   configuration I must build from scratch, through DOS partitions.  I _did_
   that before the cm206 driver was released!  Also, I would still be without
   a usable re-installation disk in case of system meltdown.

I printed copies of the Red Hat FAQ and distribution errata, but haven't
had any success solving my problems with those, nor did an updated copy
of 'boot.img' act any differently.

If anyone could confirm a successful installation from this set and identify
the method used, I would be a bit more confident.  If someone could lay out
the procedure to build boot disks and install 4.0 without using the Red Hat
'boot.img', that would be especially welcome.  I have built what looks to
be a usable boot/root disk set with 1.2.13 for Red Hat 3.0.3, but I don't
see how installing that and trying to upgrade would solve the basic problem
of 'boot.img' not recognizing my configuration: it would get me from
a.out to ELF, but that's about all, unless there is an 'upgrade' utility
which doesn't depend on the 'boot.img' disk.  If there _is_ such a beast,
then I could go forward, but I still need to know how to rebuild a usable
'boot.img'.

System parameters: 386dx40/387, 10 MBy RAM, 420 MBy HD for Linux, 3.5 and
5.25 FD's, @#$! Phillips LMS cm206/cm260 CD drive and adapter at (0x300,10)
Currently run 1.2.13/a.out based on Slackware with quite a few packages I
have built and no handy way to do an overall backup.

<whine mode on>
I have posted twice on this, but the only response I got was from another
user of another type CD drive which (though named in the installation menu),
wouldn't work, either.  The respondent pled for any useful advice I had
received, but I could only offer to pass along that which might come in
the future.

My system is 1.2.13-a.out, and I hoped that buying the "official" CD set
would give me a clean installation, easy system management, and support
folks who have given quite a bit to Linux.  So far, all I've managed to
do is contribute a bit of money.  I registered my copy and posted my problem
to Red Hat, but I suspect they're buried at the moment.

I have installed four or so Slackware distributions from six Infomagic CDROM
copies, so I'm not in the category of "non-computer users trying Linux"
to which a recent poster referred.  I believe that Red Hat have done themselves
serious harm with this distribution.  For those with longish memories (going
back to cp/m), I would call this the "JRT Pascal of Linux."
<whine mode off>

TIA

John M. Mills, Senior Research Engineer   --   john.m.mills at gtri.gatech.edu
   Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0834
        Phone contacts: 404.894.0151 (voice), 404.894.6285 (FAX)
           "Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Simulations"