suse-9.3 initrd wonkyness

[Bill Campbell]

On Fri, Feb 10, 2006, Net Llama! wrote:
>I've been fighting with this bizarro problem for the past 3 days, and I'm
>about at my wit's end, so hopefully one of you suse experts can help.
>
>I'm trying to create a suse auto-install CD that will use autoyast to
>install the packages from a separate box on the network.  I've got suse
>9.3-x86, 10.0-x86, and 10.0-x86_64 all working perfectly.

Why do you need an autoinstall CD?

I know I thought I needed to make customized CDs for autoyast
installation because the hardware we were using used NICs that
weren't in the default modules available on the standard CD.

Once I figured out that I could put tne necessary modules in the
/modules directory on the floppy along with the ``info'' file,
and put the proper insmod statement(s) in the info file, I no
longer needed use a custom CD since it wasn't used for anything
but the initial boot, find and read the info file, then proceed
to do the install from the NFS server.  The autoyast .xml file is
on the server which makes life easier as the installation doesn't
need to find the media with the info file again (which can be a
bit tricky when using USB media instead of a floppy drive).

We have two XML files, one for IDE drives installing on /dev/hda1,
and another for SCSI/SATA installing on /dev/sda1.  The only
thing that changes on the installation floppy is the info file
with the proper insmod and autoyast lines.  We haven't run into
space problems on the floppy so The /modules directory on the
floppy has all the module files we need.  haven't run into space
problems

We use the ``vnc'' option on the info file, allowing one to
control and monitor the installation from another system on the
network with vncviewer or a java enabled browser.

Bill
--
INTERNET:   bill at Celestial.COM  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
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