[3117] in SIPB_Linux_Development
Re: Athena install over AT&T Broadband
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Thomas H. Grayson)
Sun Oct 15 13:52:08 2000
Message-Id: <200010151752.NAA15859@mansard.mit.edu>
To: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
Cc: linux-dev@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 14 Oct 2000 15:13:03 EDT."
<200010141913.PAA05651@small-gods.mit.edu>
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 13:52:03 -0400
From: "Thomas H. Grayson" <thg@MIT.EDU>
An FTP or HTTP install sounds like an outstanding idea, so I
decided to give it a whirl. I copied the entire is-linux
installation tree to another machine and served it up first by
ftp and then by http. The install floppy can launch the second
stage install, but then the installation options are the standard
ones for Red Hat 6.2--the Athena Workstation option is not
available. Also, it stays with the text-based installer, at
least to this point. I gather that HTTP or FTP installs are
text-only. That's fine, since I can handle configuring X myself.
But what happened to Athena?
Tom
> From: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
> Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 15:13:03 -0400
> Subject: Re: Athena install over AT&T Broadband
>
> > What could be going wrong? Obviously my PC is finding the SIPB NFS
> > share. Does it restrict something to .mit.edu addresses only?
>
> No, no such restriction. The Linux NFS client just isn't perfectly
> reliable as used by the install floppy (empirically speaking) and it
> tends to fail over a MediaOne link. I have this problem myself maybe
> 75% of the time I've tried to install from home, with the failure
> point varying. If you retry, it might work.
>
> Unfortunately, we need to use NFS to get the graphical install (since
> many of the necessary materials don't fit onto a floppy), and we need
> the graphical install in order to get the X configuration done before
> the disk is repartitioned and all the packages are installed--which is
> a good thing since X configuration has a reasonably high chance of
> failing.
>
> Still, it would be better if people could use the text install with
> FTP or HTTP instead of NFS.
