installing slackware over redhat
 

i have posted a question a few days ago in the linux distro for slack ware with no solutions or suggestions. i was hoping that someone would give me some advise with installing slackware.

i have red hat installed but i would like to try slack ware out. i was hoping to just install slack ware using my current partitions instead of repartitioning. my problem is setup doesnt detect any linux partitions already installed. in redhat /dev/hde is the device but when i boot into the install cd it doesn't recognize my hard drive as /dev/hde instead it is /dev/hda am i trippin. I'm running my hard drive on a pci promise adapter card (made by maxtor). could there be some sort of problem. the most current version of the linux kernel is suppose to support my adapter card. i googled and searched this place for answers to these questions with no luck.

hde2 - vfat
hde3 - vfat
hde4 - vfat
hde5 - /boot
hde6 - /
hde7 - swap


anyone have any suggestions
thanks,
AD

well, i started out with red hat and i'd say i'm quite happy when i installed slackware 8.1 on my laptop. the slackware installation offers very different options compared to the way RH is doing it.

try checking out the options when you are at the installation boot prompt. you can list the available options and choose the kernel appropriate for your hardware (i.e bare.i or scsi.i).

this is most possibly a hardware support issue and the kernel that you are using might not have the support for that. (the installation defaults to the bare.i kernel and thats the one that i used).

maybe u can try raising this issue (promise support) in the slackware channel? or maybe the mod can move this post there? :)

ok for slackware you only need two partition... accually u only need one but i like to have a swap. there are hda1,2,3,4,5,etc for slackware... i do not know if you can install two different platform... i think you have to format everything out, but correct me if im wrong. but first burn your display drivers onto a cd so you won't get stuck after everything is install.

Do "fdisk -l " in RedHat and see what it returns? What kernel are you using in RedHat? Slackware 8.1 default is 2.4.18.

thanks for the replys guys i will work on this issue some more tonight. allen 614 i am using the defualt kernel which is sopose to suport ide adapter cards. ill give the -l a try. i think it just list the partitions.

henry i dont want to install 2 different platforms i just want to install over the redhat installation using the existing partitions.

born4linux the most current kernel with slackware is the same kernel as redhat 8.0 so it should support ide adapter cards.

if you wanna erase redhat then
when you boot into slackware installtion,through fdisk delete hde5 and hde6 and make only 1 partition of them hde5 (hde5=xhde5+xhde6).
hde6 will be your swap (Xhde7).
use hde5 as your "/' parition.and hde6 as swap.install "lilo' on mbr.
Another Solution.

another simple solution is this that delete any your fat32 partition and make it ext , use it as "/" fo slackware and same swap for slackware and redhat. dont disturb the redhat partitions.
install lilo on"first boot sector of root partition."
and inside redhat add a entry in your lilo
like
other=/dev/hde?
label=slackware

you will be have 2 lilo's install.

well i basically cant do anything right now I'm stuck. like i said in red hat hardware browser my hard drive configuration looks like this:

/dev/hde
hde1 6997mb extended
hde5 102mb ext3
hde6 4997 ext3
hde7 1028 linux swap
hde2 4997 fat
hde3 16998 fat
hde4 10205 fat

in the linux install cd if i type at the command prompt "fdisk /dev/hde" it says that it doesn't exist. but if i type "fdisk /dev/hda" then fdisk starts up. this is where I'm confused shouldn't slack ware recognize my hard drive as /dev/hde. is there a way to tell for sure what slack ware is recognizing my hard drive as. the boot up process goes by too fast too see anything. so if my hard drive is /dev/hda then what is my cd rom drive? I'm confused.

if i try to use cfdisk it says read disk only no permission to write and no partition or unknown partition table do you wish to start with a zero table [y/N]. if i type no it takes me back to the command line if i type yes then it starts cfdisk up. it only shows that i have 682.7 mb of space on my HD. 225 heads 63 sectors per track and 83 cylinders.

the last thing i want to do is destroy my fat partitions.

one more thing that might be causing a problem is my linux partitions are ext3. now i heard somewhere that the ext3 partition type is something new to linux and red hat was the first to use it. could it be that slack ware doesn't use the ext3 partition type. just a guess. or maybe that fdisk and cfdisk don't recognize ext3 type.

thanks for all of the help guys,
AD

It's unlikely that the ext3 partitions would cause much trouble, since ext3 is basically ext2 with a journal. In fact, the only snag from ext3 is if your kernel doesn't have (ext3) support compiled in, but then you could still mount the ext3 partitions as ext2 with no problem.

Have you run 'fdisk -l' yet? It does 'just' list the partitions, but the output from this should give you a much better idea of what the slack install is recognizing or not recognizing, or even which /dev/hd* is your hard drive.

BTW from the output of cfdisk (read-only, 682Mb), /dev/hda does sound like a CDRom.

--- Cerbere

uh, i was referring to the kernels used during install. not all kernels used during install are the same. slack has a variety of it. :)

cheers.

disable any builtin IDE controller from your bios.
this will make it naturally hda.

i verified the problem is support for my controller card by switching my hard drive from my ide controller card to my onboard ide. it detects my drive and i can see all of the partitions. not sure where to take it now i have been through the slackware site and looked at all of the available kernels. none mention promise or ide controller cards that i can see. besides this kernel is suppose to support promise as far as red hats documentation goes. I'm wondering if i need to enter some sort of extra perimeters before i boot into the kernel.

well I'm of to search for a solution any input would be appreciated

thanks for all the help
AD;)

When you get to the boot prompt try the raid.s kernel.
From /home/bern/EzISO/slackware.iso/Slackware-HOWTO,

i already tried the raid.s kernel with no luck but thanks for the input

AD