i dont know if this is the right place to post my question, but i cant think of a better one. (as i cant seem to get registered for the DSL Board)

ive just got a copy of damnsmalllinux 4.2.5 (think its the latest release)

im trying to do a harddrive install from this link
http://damnsmalllinux.org/dsl-hd-install.html
(the only reason im even trying to use DSL is because the computer only has 30 mb ram and a 400 mhz proocessor)

ive followed theese directions

How to install:
1. Create a app. 250-300MB Linux partition with cfdisk or fdisk (e.g. /dev/hda1, /dev/sda2)
2. Boot into DSL by using you CD and enter the terminal.
3. Execute "dsl-hdinstall" by typing "sudo -u root dsl-hdinstall" (without the quotes)
and enter the just created partition (e.g. /dev/hda1, /dev/sda2)
This will make a ext2 file system and copies the CD contents to it.
A couple of specific changes are made after that (see end of script)
4. Execute "mkliloboot" by typing "sudo -u root mkliloboot" (without the quotes)
Enter the partition that your install is on. This will create an "initrd" with the needed modules and will setup "LILO".

The problem is when i get to #4
i get this error message

ive also gone to this link
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/i..._the_Hard_Disk
i used this link to make the swap partition

Please if anyone can help me at all any imput would be greatly appreciated. Ive been trying to post on the DSL board for like over a week now and still cant.
Also given that i only have 30 mb ram and 400mhz processor should i go ahead with the harddrive install or try the frugal or would i be best off to just keep booting from the cd( ive read that the hard drve install leads to some problems with the mydsl packages, but after reading the fix im confident that it wouldnt be much of a problem)

Moved: This thread is more suitable in DamnSmallLinux and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

thanks xavier

but seriously does anyone have any ideas what i could do?

Im still pretty new to linux so i find myself in kind of a bind here.

Also ive noticed another bootloader that comes with dsl called grub, does anyone know how i might go about installing that? I dont really care what loader i use as long as it works and so far i havent found anything on any forums about not being able to instal liloboot or how to install grub without dualbooting.

Try telling sudo to run /sbin/mkliloboot instead of just mkliloboot? Other than that, no idea.

hmm well i tried but got the same error


but if i cd to /sbin and ls -a i see lilo and lilo.real but no mkliloboot

could it be one of those?

Yeah, try /sbin/lilo.

If that fails, I'm lost. I did a quick search on Google but it looks like no-one else has the same problem. Weird.

ok i tried lilo and it says i need to edit /etc/lilo.conf before running lilo, but i cant figure out how to edit it
( i tried beaver /etc/lilo.conf, but it wont let me change anything, i also tried nano /etc/lilo.conf but i cant figure out how to save it.
it says ^G to get help but i cant figure out what that means, i tried just typing ^G and hitting enter but it does nothing
any ideas?

yea ive also been looking on other forums and google but i cant find anyone with the same problem? do u think my live cd might be bad?


UPDATE i just found this site wich i think will help me alot but i still need to learn how to save the file with nano
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/li...-bootload.html

Open a file with Then edit it as you would under any similar text editor and then do CTRL+X. You will be prompted to save or discard your changes and the program will then close.

ahh thanks i see now that the ^ symbol must mean ctrl

ctrl+o is save in nano.

I must admit that CTRL+X is the only command I ever really bothered to learn in Nano - usually I just edit a file and then close it.

now ive run into another problem when i try to save the lilo.conf file it says
what do i do now?

by the way i used this site to learn to configure lilo
http://www.control-escape.com/linux/lilo-cfg.html

You will need to edit the file as root to be able to save it.

>sudo nano lilo.conf

yea thats what i figured too, but i have been using root the whole time. ive done
then i did
nothing works.

i also checked the file permisions but everything seems fine, i just dont understand why i cant edit the file.

Maybe.. try to copy /etc/lilo.conf to you home directory, edit it in there, hopefully save it and run lilo like this:
as root.