# Installing Gentoo With Slackware Floppies

## staked

So, as most of us without access to a cdrom know, installing Gentoo without one takes a few extra steps. And with the toms boot floopy no longer an option that leaves us looking for another method. And as I've just done an install with the Slackware 8.1 floppies I've decided to whip up a little document for what I did.  And as the Slack floppies offer pretty much everything you need I think they're a pretty good choice.

What you'll need:

7, yes 7, floppy disks.

The appropriate Slackware images. I used bare.i for  my boot disk, you'll need to pick the appropriate one for your hardware.  IE, xfs.i for xfs support, or the various SCSI hardware disks.  The 5 rootdisks (install.1, install.2, etc). The network rootdisk. And, if you need pcmcia during the install, the pcmcia rootdisk. 

To format the disks in Linux it's:

```

dd if=<image> of=<your floppy drive>

Windows:

rawrite <image> A:

```

So now you've booted with your floppies.  Just type root to log in.  From here you can use fdisk to setup your partitions as needed. I'm not going to go into that here as that's covered in the basic Gentoo install doc.

Now you need network access. Do the following:

```

# network

```

It will prompt you to put in the network floppy. Go ahead and let it probe for your card. 

Then, so you can access the net, do:

```

# ifconfig $IFACE $IPNUM broadcast $BCAST netmask $NMASK

# /sbin/route add -net default gw $GTWAY netmask 0.0.0.0 metric 1

```

If you need DNS to wget your stage tarball do:

```

# vi /etc/resolv.conf

nameserver <ip address>

:wq

```

Now mount your partitions as instructed in the Gentoo install doc. Then:

```

# cd /mnt/gentoo

# wget http://<gentoo mirror>/<whatever stage you want>

# wget ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/bzip2/v102/bzip2-102-x86-linux24

```

That second wget grabs you a static bzip2 binary. Which you need since the Slack floppies don't have bzip2.

Your last step that differs from the regular install docs is untarring the tarball. You need to do:

```

# chmod +x bzip2-102-x86-linux24

# ./bzip2-102-x86-linux24 -d <stage>

# tar -xvpf <stage>

```

Now start at step 9, ignoring the part about untarring your stage, and you're good to go. 

Any comments, quetions, etc, please feel free to post them.Last edited by staked on Mon Feb 03, 2003 5:58 am; edited 1 time in total

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## heijs

Shouldn't the last step be

```

# tar -xvjpf <tarball>

```

 :Wink: 

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## zawze

heijs:

 *Quote:*   

>  This is the part that may make things hard for folks. The slack floppies have no bzip2 support. So you'll need to download, before the install, the stage you want to use. Unbzip it, gzip it and stick it up on a web server where you can grab it. 

 

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## staked

Ok, latexer from #gentoo pointed out what should have been obvious to me from the start. Grabbing a static bzip2 binary so you don't need to worry about gzipping the stage. The mini-howto has been reflected to show the new method.

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## azambuja

yeah, everything fine...

but how about people that have to configure the network with dhcpd?

im one of them   :Very Happy: 

thanx/cheers

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## edge3281

 *staked wrote:*   

> And with the toms boot floopy no longer an option that leaves us looking for another method.

 

Why is toms boot floppy no longer an option?  I install about 6 months ago using toms boot floppy.  Just wondering what is up.

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## azambuja

 *edge3281 wrote:*   

>  *staked wrote:*   And with the toms boot floopy no longer an option that leaves us looking for another method. 
> 
> Why is toms boot floppy no longer an option?  I install about 6 months ago using toms boot floppy.  Just wondering what is up.

 

the problem with the toms boot floppy is that the kernel is too old.

btw, any solution to the ones(yeah, me) that need dhcp to install with the slack boot floppies?

thanx/cheers

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## flickerfly

ok, let's say I can't get the network up, but I can get the cd mounted.  Is there a way to start the CD install process instead of the network install process?  I'm finding it isn't as simple as chroot'ing.

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## 3vilinside

 *heijs wrote:*   

> Shouldn't the last step be
> 
> ```
> 
> # tar -xvjpf <tarball>
> ...

 

no, since I've successfully "untared" the stage without the -j option. tar will give you an error saying that the -j option is invalid for this command. Maybe something is different with my setup (I've installed with slackware boot disks) but AFAIK it does not work with the -j tag.

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## fatChance

hey noob question I count at most you need is 6 disks , why 7?

bare.i

install.1

install.2

rescue.dsk

pcmcia.dsk

network.dsk

am I missing something?

-fat

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## `Lucas

If it can be usefull to someone, I've been using btmgr from:

http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/

So you can boot using this floppy and you'll be able to tell it to boot the Gentoo CD on older computer with a BIOS that won't let you boot from the CD-Rom.

-Luc

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## mycroes

Just to let everybody know it works with newer versions too: I am currently installing Gentoo with the 9.1 floppies. The disks I used are:

bare.i

install.1

install.2

network.dsk

The rescue disk may be enough for it all, but I doubt if it has network support (haven't tried it yet)... Anyway, thanks for the little piece on installing from floppy, as my cd-drive doesn't work when support for its chipset is enabled, thus I can't install from any cd which I boot with a kernel with support for it...

Greetings,

Michael

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## mudrii

How to make Gentoo Floppy if is option or why not have Gentoo Boot floopy  :Sad: 

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## Bollenator

 *azambuja wrote:*   

> btw, any solution to the ones(yeah, me) that need dhcp to install with the slack boot floppies?

 

Good question; I'm thinking of installing on a really old Toshiba laptop with no CD and I'll need to do it on a DHCP network.  How do I get that set up?  Also, how do I make sure I have PCMCIA support before I start the network stuff (I have a PC-card NIC).  Thanks!

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## mycroes

I think dhcp is just a matter of passing the right params to the networking setup program, and in the worst case you need to use a static ip on your dhcp network, that tends to work most times. My dhcp server only gives ips in the 192.168.0.2 - 192.168.0.51 range, so I use 52 and up for static ips. To use pcmcia use the pcmcia floppy, if you can't get it to work ask the slackware community how you can get it to work, they probably do know...

Greetings,

Michael

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## PowerFactor

 *mycroes wrote:*   

> 
> 
> The rescue disk may be enough for it all, but I doubt if it has network support (haven't tried it yet)...

 

The rescue disk does have all the network tools but you still need network.dsk for the drivers.

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## Dinosys

Cheers mate  :Smile: 

This helped a lot  :Wink: 

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## pseudonym

 *heijs wrote:*   

> Shouldn't the last step be
> 
> ```
> 
> # tar -xvjpf <tarball>
> ...

 

No, the -j option means "filter through bzip2" which isn't necessary, since the previous command uncompressed it (and doesn't work because tar can't find the bzip2 we installed).

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