[TriLUG] Problem setting up debian on a new machine

[Andrew Perrin]

Folks,

I got a new computer today and begin setting up debian on it. I'm using 
the minimal install CD image from the testing distribution, and in the 
past this has worked fine for me.

TOday, though, it barfs on trying to install grub in the MBR. 
Specifically, it seems to be looking for grub-install in /sbin when in 
fact it resides in /usr/sbin. But doing the same thing in /usr/sbin 
manually that it's trying to do in /sbin just gets me to a grub command 
line at boot up, and from there I"m lost. I end up with the dreaded VFS 
panic about an invalid root=parameter. I should mention that one 
difference between this machine and previous ones I've worked on is that 
it's got a SATA drive as the primary, so root needs to be /dev/sda1.

Any advice? I'm currently working on making a boot floppy to see if that 
works.

THanks,
Andy

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin (at) unc.edu - http://perrin.socsci.unc.edu
Assistant Professor of Sociology; Book Review Editor, _Social Forces_
University of North Carolina - CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA
New Book: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/178592.ctl