Re: [gentoo-server] Dell 1655mc

[Martin Hajduch]

>>>My problem is that these servers don't have ide or scsi floppy or cdrom
>>>drives.
>>>
>>>It has just one usb 1.0 plug which I *can* boot the live cd from, but
>>>*all* the cd's(knoppix too) fail to find the cdrom device when It comes
>>>time.
>>>I've tryed PXE booting to start the install but I only have a redhat
>>>server to work from and for me thats like pulling my own teeth with a
>>>claw hammer.
>>>
>>>
if you have the resources, you can try this:

- take system which has usb 1.0, which can also boot from that cd drive, 
and where you can install gentoo
- install gentoo, build a kernel of your choice and find out which 
modules you need to be able to access your cd drive on usb
- create initrd (your own, it does not need to be as sophisticated 
[complicated] as the one created by genkernel) - something like 
lvmcreate_initrd does
- copy your modules there, add /sbin/insmod commands
- recreate gentoo live cd, with your kernel and your initrd there

i had a similar problem - i have raid controller which is not supported 
in kernels available on the live cd (and not in vanilla kernel as well)
bios can access the disk, but linux was not able to - so i could boot 
but was unable to access the disk where i wanted to install the system
(and i had only one cdrom drive, no network and not enough memory to 
cache gentoo's live cd, etc ...)
i have a source code for the driver, so i created my own version of the 
live cd with the module there and the rest was simple

regards,
martin