I am trying to install debian 3.0 on an old 486 dx2 66 with 8 mb of ram, but i have some troubles:

Someone suggested me to toggle the hd, to put it in a faster pc, to install debian and to reput the hd on the 486, and i did it, especially cause the 486 has a sony cdu33a ( i haven't yet solved this pb ) and can't boot from cd (even changing it with another, i need disks to start, and i haven't them... )

1) It boots, i run modconf, and there isn't the cdu31a driver... how can i proceed? The "good" thing is that it's easy to setup the audio card... ( sb16 isa pnp ).

2) The floppy disk doesn't work ( can't initialize a: ). Probably on the other pc there is another controller, and this one is not compatible , so what can i do to use the floppy drive?

3) I have a null modem cable to connect the 486 to the modern pc, but how can i setup a serial connection to transfer files ( n.b. also it think that the uart is a 16550, but it's a 16450... i have to change it first )?

4) At the boot it searchs hdc and hdd ( about ten minutes... ), but the controller has only a primary master and slave, not a secondary channel. How can i avoid this?

Thanks in advance

I dont think it is a good idea to install in one system and simply change the master to another hardware configuration. Take the time, donwload the floppy and install on the system.
Something that is valid is installing once and them copying the image to other systems with the same config. Yet, chaging hardware is something analogous to choosing sparc while installing on a ix86. It just wont work

Not so. I have installed Debian 3.0 without sound or xwindows on one PC and returned it to another and it has been working fine for months.
How would zipslack work if you could not just unzip it to any PC?
Obviously you would not want to configure the wrong sound and video card, install to SCSI and try to plug it into an IDE, load the system on hdb and try to run it as hda, and etc.

mtb, did you actually install Debian while the hard drive was in the other PC, or just transfer files?

Yes, you are right. But the, in this case your simple installing on the same hardware, a ix86 structure.

Installing the OS on another box and then transferring the disk is almost always a bad idea. It will sorta work with some versions of Windows, which are flexible enough to switch, but it will still generate piles upon piles of error messages. I don't know whether Linux is able to do that but my money's against it.

Look, I'm not gonna twist anyone's arm and make them install on another PC. But it may be an option if you do not have better choices. I have done it and it is still working.
And once again. If this is a terrible idea, so is Zipslack which you just unzip onto a DOS partition and it works. And it's not.
If you watch the install it is not going to generate piles of errors. With a basic install with no sound or xwindows, what are you suggesting is going to be different?
Isn't most basic hardware detected on bootup.

I've beenable to install a BASE SYSTEM on a mobile hardDrive, then move the HD to an older box. This works as long as you don't put anything else (such as X) on the HD.

I've retried, installing 2.2 instead of 3.0 with the hd on the primary master on the newer pc, retransferred the hd and now it works. For the serial it's necessary to remove a file in /etc, the floppy now works, and it doesn't look for hdc and hdd . And the sony cdrom now works.

I have still some problems setting up the serial network: i've been able to set it up, but i have troubles transferring files from one pc to another with ftp.

The server ( the new pc ) is named 192.168.0.1, the client ( the old one ) is named 192.168.1.1. I connect with pppd ( both ), but the only thing i can do is to open a telnet from the new pc ( configured as server ) and use the older one from the new one. Ftp says: connection refused, and the same thing if i open a telnet session on the old pc and i use the command:

open 192.168.0.1 ( connection refused ).

Some ideas? ( thx in adv )

The only way I know to work with serial lines it to uncomment the serial connection lines (in Debian) in /etc/inittab on the PC you want others to connect to.
The PC connecting to it needs to run Minicom, Kermit or such. Some configuration is needed.
I didn't know anything could be done with pppd to connect via serial.
The method I mention above starts a getty on the one machine for the other to log into. You would use zmodem or such for file transfer, something I have not had much luck with. A NIC in each would be much faster.