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Dell laptop nfs install problems

I have an old Dell Latitude Cpi R400GT missing it's cdrom that I'm trying to install Slackware 9.1 on. I have the boot bare, install 1 and 2, pcmcia and network floppies and booting from those works just fine.

I've been trying to do a NFS install from my desktop computer which is running slackware 9.1, but it won't work. They're connected through a switch.

If I let the setup configure the network card itself and try a NFS-install I get the network is unavailable message.

If i mount the NFS manually, setup ifconfig manually and try the "already mounted network disk"(don't remember exavtly what it's called) source alternative the setup will let me choose which packages and full install, but it won't install anything - it just goes back to the setup menu.

So I checked whether the NFS works at all by setting up ifconfig and mounting the nfs folder manually, and I was able to copy zipslack from the desktop to the windows-partition on the laptop. I can also boot zipslack from the windows partition by the way.

I don't know what's the best thing to do, Can the NFS install be fixed? should I try installing via zipslack, or should I copy all the slackware files manually via NFS to the empty linux partition? Can the target partition be the same as the source?

Have you tried this?

Quote:

from http://www.slackware.com/faq/do_faq....q=installation
Q: If the setup menus for NFS installation don't work, how can I setup the network manually before starting setup?

Once your Linux machine is listed in the hosts /etc/exports (if the whole network is not already), you might need to do these things before running setup. This is usually only needed if the NFS server is on a different subnet than your Linux machine:

# Setup the loopback device:
ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1
route add -net 127.0.0.0
# Setup the network:
ifconfig eth0 1.2.3.4 # 1.2.3.4 is the ip number of my machine.
route add -net 1.2.3.0
route add default gw 1.2.3.1 # in this example, the ip address of our NFS
# server is 1.2.31.4 and belongs to a different
# network.

Cheers,
Tink

Tried it, no difference. Actually when I write route add -net [ipnumber] I get this error message:
SIOCADDRT: Invalid argument

and the message I get from setting up NFS as source is:

Configuring ethernet card...
Configuring your gateway...
SIOCADDRT: File exists
Running /sbin/rpc.portmap...
Mounting NFS...

Current mount table:
/dev/fd2 on / type ext2 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
/dev/hda3 on /mnt type reiserfs (rw)
[nfs-server-ip]:/home/slackware on /var/log/mount type nfs (ro,nolock,addr=[nfs-server-ip])

my exports file on the desktop says to share in (rw) though...

I've seen this problem (and experienced it) before. I've noticed that you need to do a "clean" install (i.e. format the drives, etc.) for it to work. For some reason, if you make ANY mistake during the dialog, it won't work and you'll get the error that you're seeing.

1. Make sure that your host machine is running the nfsd daemon and that directory where slackware files are located is exported.

2. Boot from floppy, bare.i , install 1 & 2, network floppy.

3. Format each of the partitions as though it's the first time you're installing slackware - even if the partitions are already formatted correctly.

4. Specifiy where NFS should get your files from. For example, if your files are located in /software/slack/slackware then you need to use /software/slack/slackware as the location.

That should do it. Good luck...