Hi All! This is my first posting here. I have been using SuSE Linux the last couple of years and decided to upgrade my 7.3 Pro to 9.0 Pro.

My problem is as follows: I have a mirror of the "9.0" directory (in /9.0) of the SuSE FTP server on my HDD and I would like to install from it. This is a standalone machine, no network, no NIC even. Dual booting with Win2K using LILO on a floppy.

Here's my hardware:

AMD K-6 processor 333 MHz Matsonic M5025s Mobo WD 30 GB HDD IDE
Cyberdrive CW068D CD-RW 256 MB SDRAM NEC Floppy drive
Pine 8MB video card PCI USB card USB mouse
PS/2 keyboard

I created a CD from boot.iso, booted successfully from it and got the installation menus.

The error I get occurs after partitioning and package selection, during the actual packages' installation. I get "x.rpm cannot be found" (where "x" is the name of the package file). This struck me as a little silly, as I have ALL the rpms for that distribution right there, on a ReiserFS partition! I intend to do a little more troubleshooting on my own, but I was wondering if anyone here had encountered this... ? Also, now, since I actually began the install, I can't reboot my old (7.3) Linux OS. Hmm... good thing I do have those CDs!!

I had thought of making my own distro CDs from the mirror I have, but SuSE has said this is not possible; so, I searched for CD directory maps on the Web, but no such information could be found, despite some Googling. SuSE wouldn't give me support without an activation key (sound familiar to anyone? )! Fair enough.

If anyone has had success installing their 9.0 this way, or can offer a viable alternative, please do let me know.



Regards

mellodrone

When I've downloaded the distro I've just burnt it to a dvd and booted off a cd, and then swapped when it finished the initial menu selections. I did also have problems recently with a hdd install, but I think it was due to some file corruptions and re-downloading appeared to fix the probs.

If it's failing at the package selection, it sounds like the directory structure is now what it expects, or there is a corruption in the index file or even the rpms, but the index table seems more likely to be the culprit?

First, thank you kindly for taking the time to reply...

Your solution is great... only I don't have a DVD reader/burner :,(

I may try to re-download. I don't know if I can though... I downloaded it at work

I agree that the index table could be at fault - do you happen to know which file that would be? Should I edit it? I feel if I had a copy of the 9.0 CD#1 directory tree, I could make that disc, install the default system and the other rpms and patches later? What do you think, aarggh?

Just linux it

mellodorne

You can't copy the layout for the cd's, because the index tables are binaries from memory, and the layout for the files on the ftp site have the tables configured specifically for this layout. I could be wrong however.

I've dumped the dir structure for 9.0 below so it may help you in identifying the filenames and layout to see visually if there is anything obviously different. I also just wonder if perhaps the ftp client you used didn't use binary mode for the files. I have had loads of trouble using some clients like leechftp in that when auto mode was selected, it would often default to using ascii for downloading the binaries, thus corrupting the rpm's. I used several GB's bandwidth working this one out! Other clients like Filezilla and smartftp appear to be no problem. All in all there should be around 4097 files and 60 dir's. Try running the rpm check on some packages to see if this is the case.

As for installing off the first cd, it would be quite tedious to get all the other packages installed later, I have found some packages really need to be installed together in a certain order otherwise problems may occur. Seems like a lot of work. But if it won't install from a hdd, then this means there is a file/dir/layout problem anyway that needs to be solved.


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9427870 Nov 18 11:24 ARCHIVES.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 17992 Oct 2 23:20 COPYING
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 21452 Oct 2 23:20 COPYING.tex
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1265 Oct 2 23:20 COPYRIGHT
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 27849 Oct 2 23:20 COPYRIGHT.yast
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4369361 Nov 18 11:20 ChangeLog
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 57215 Nov 18 11:31 INDEX.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 363 Oct 2 23:20 LIESMICH
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 377 Oct 2 23:20 LIESMICH.DOS
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 44490 Nov 21 11:31 MD5SUMS
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 189 Nov 21 11:31 MD5SUMS.asc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 334 Oct 2 23:20 README
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 348 Oct 2 23:20 README.DOS
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2006 Nov 18 11:49 README.FTP
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2238 Oct 2 23:20 SuSEgo.ico
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 36 Oct 2 23:20 autorun.inf
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Dec 29 13:28 boot
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 592 Nov 18 10:50 content
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 260 Nov 18 11:21 directory.yast
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Dec 29 13:29 docu
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 4096 Dec 29 13:30 dosutils
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1694 Oct 2 23:20 gpg-pubkey-3d25d3d9-36e12d04.asc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2401 Oct 2 23:20 gpg-pubkey-9c800aca-39eef481.asc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 103223 Nov 18 11:24 ls-lR.gz
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 29 13:30 media.1
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2817 Oct 2 23:20 pubring.gpg
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Dec 29 15:13 suse
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Dec 29 15:14 unsorted