Karl,
It sounds like you've tried about everything I did and seen about every
website I've read on this subject. For what its' worth:
The patch disk you mentioned did start up PCMCIA services for me and turned
on the card (the little light on the network cable went one). However, it
did not recognize the card and although it asked me how to configure the
card for the network, when it went to do the actual ftp, it failed.
Once I installed via CD-ROM, the card was automatically recognized on boot
after I edited the /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia file to specify the irq's of my
network card and _after I removed the modem in the other bay_.
I installed with PnP OS set to yes, so it did not recognize the bus at all.
After installation, I set it to no. I detected the bus, but crashed (as the
web documention indicates it will). I booted with the rescue disk, changed
the /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia as noted above, and it worked just fine without
any other configuration.
But I did not get ftp install to work.
If you wanted to do a hard disk install, you would just need to recreate the
ftp directory structure of the ftp site on you hard disk (only the red-hat
portion). I read on a website someplace (can't remember the url) that you
don't need all the red-hat files, only a certain subset to do an install.
But if I recall correctly, I downloaded just about the entired red-hat 5.2
directory in about 600 megs. I used sunsite during the evening. I got the
whole thing in about 30 minutes. But when did the install, I accidently
deleted the dos partition upon which the downloaded files were residing.
My conclusion when installing red-hat on my inspiron that the easiest method
is to break down and buy the cd's. You can get them pretty cheap at
www.cheapbytes.com. I don't know how reputable they are, but my 5.2 cd's
are supposed to be in the mail now. It was only $7 after shipping. I also
bought the 5.1 cd's shrinked wrapped in our local bookstore. More
expensive, but it is worth the $.
If CD install is not an option, I would probably try to do the hard disk
install. Just be careful when using disk druid that you do not delete the
partition upon which the files reside.
Hope that helps.
Travis
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