I've found a way to get the install to work on the 630MB drive.
I started the standard (not the cooker firewall) 7.2 install, and used its
diskdrake to determine its recommended partitioning. Sort of a "second
opinion" compared to the diskdrake in the cooker firewall install. It
suggested, for my 599 MB, about 100MB for the swap space and the rest
mounted on "/".
So I used that recommendation (rather than the 8 partitions the cooker
firewall install had suggested), for the cooker firewall install.
It seems to have worked.
I say "seems" because I have what I suspect is another unrelated problem,
which has kept me from testing the new install completely:
I had a Northpoint-based dsl line that is history due to the demise of
Northpoint a few days ago. Now I only have a dialup line with which to test.
I had tried both dialup and dsl configurations previously, and once had a
working dialup configuration, but only after playing with various
configurations. I haven't been able to get it right yet this time. The
system tries to dial the modem, but it doesn't complete successfully. I have
an external USR 56k modem. When I connect from my w2k system on the modem,
with same ISP, I hear a distinct click on the modem when it takes the line
off-hook. When I try from the firewall, I see a second light illuminate but
don't hear the click, and after several seconds it retries.
So anyway, I'm assuming that my basic install problem is overcome, by
overriding the partitioning suggested by diskdrake in the cooker firewall,
and using a simpler set of partitions.
I don't know how important it would be for the install to be corrected to
avoid this problem. Anyone starting off with a new hard drive wouldn't be a
victim of this problem, since new drives aren't being sold that small
anymore. But I think lots of tinkerers like myself would try to make do with
used systems and components, including a small drive like this one. The
cooker firewall doesn't seem to need any bigger drive once installed.
At a minimum, I suggest that a workaround such as mine be included in
documentation for the cooker-firewall.
Esten Porter
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Esten N
Porter
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2001 10:21 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: FW: [Cooker-firewall] no admin account on 486-66/20MB/329MB
install
After doing more experimentation, it is apparent that the problem is caused
by insufficient space on the hard drive, to successfully complete the
installation.)
(Incidentally, I gave up on the 486 for other unrelated difficulties, namely
its lack of PCI slots caused me to need to use troublesome network cards. I
have a 100BT hub, and the only 100BT capable ISA NIC I could get cheaply was
difficult to get the system to recognize.)
Using either a 329MB or a 630MB hard drive, the same problem I had on the
486 turned up on a Pentium 120. (Primary indication was failure to create
the admin account.) But when I tried installing on the next biggest drive I
had available (2.5GB), the installation was fine.
I then looked at the space allocated and used after the installation on the
2.5GB drive, and determined that it was around 250MB not counting the swap
space. df didn't show my swap space, but with my 64MB memory I had used
about 77MB swap space on the 2.5GB drive, so I'm guessing it was in that
ballpark. That would mean that around 327MB would be actually used, after
installation.
I couldn't find any statements of the minimum requirements of the cooker
firewall. The 329MB drive looks too borderline to consider making work, but
I hoped that I could figure out how to make the 630MB drive work.
I've tried partitioning the 630MB drive manually during the installation
process, and sizing each partition to a size that was proportionally equal
to that allocated automatically for the 2.5GB drive, but of course of left
77MB for swap and made sure that none were less than the space actually used
by the files (as determined from the successful installation on the 2.5GB
drive).
That didn't work. I kept getting errors during the install, seems like it
was a ldconfig error or something like that. I'm guessing that more space is
needed somewhere during installation.
I tried copying the partitions to the smaller drive using PowerQuest
DriveCopy v2.0, but that program only sees two partitions and doesn't
comprehend the actual space used, so it can't do the job. (I've used
DriveCopy successfully before on disks with FAT partitions, and I believe
that for FAT and maybe some other Windows file systems, it could have
managed such a copy.)
So my first question for this group is: is there a reasonable way to copy
all the files from the cooker firewall as installed on a larger drive (such
as the 2.5GB), to a smaller drive (such as the 630MB drive); and have as a
result a functional system on the smaller drive?
My second question is: are there plans to improve the installation process
so that one could install with the normal procedure, on a small drive?
thanks,
Esten Porter
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Esten N
Porter
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2001 4:52 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Cooker-firewall] no admin account on 486-66/20MB/329MB install
I've installed beta 4 using cookfire-1.0beta4.i386.iso, on a Pentium
120/32MB, and am currently using that setup with a DSL connection.
I've also installed it on a Celeron 400/64MB, and am now trying the same
image on a 486-66/20MB. On the Celeron 400/64MB system I used gui mode fine,
but realized even with the Pentium 120/32MB system I needed text mode to get
the install to complete reliably. And I'm only trying text mode with the
486/20MB system.
I'm having a showstopper problem on the 486 in that the admin account can't
login locally, and apparently doesn't even get created. The general user
account does get created. The hard drive is a 329MB IDE.
Esten
