🚀 go-pugleaf

It's 19 May 96  14:34,
We'll return to hamish@rising.com.au and All's
discussion of installation question

 ha> From my experience this isn't necessary; I have a WD 1.6gb drive, with
 ha> 16 heads, 63 sectors and 3148 cylinders. Linux lives in the final 500mb
 ha> of the  drive, ie well after 1024 cylinders. Linux automatically
 ha> translates the disk  geometry from 3148/16/63 to 767/64/63, which works
 ha> fine with LILO. (Actually, >16 heads shouldn't be valid, but seems to
 ha> work). And Linux translates my 540mb >drive from 1048/16/63 to
 ha> 524/32/63.

Obviously, you're running an EIDE controller and compatible drive.

 ha> Linux 1.2.x seems to have some problems with this autotranslation;
 ha> often it  doesn't do it. Linux 1.3 is fine though.

It's a BIOS limitation, as LILO needs to use the BIOS to access the HDD,
and most BIOS's are limited to 1024 cylinders.  I've installed LILO on a
few configurations:

486DX4100, Conner 1.2GB drive.  This had an EIDE controller and
compatible BIOS, and the drive was remapped from 2479/16/63 to
619/64/63, and LILO had no problems.

Same PC w/ Quantum 2.5 GB drive.  This drive couldn't be remapped for
some reason, and I was stuck with 4900 odd (!) cylinders.  Only solution
was to create a 60 MB root filesystem at the start of the drive, and
boot off that.  /usr lives on a separate partition.

386SX40 w/o EIDE controller, using Conner 1.2GB drive.  This one had a
450MB DOS partition and the rest Linux and swap.  Again, LILO wouldn't
work, as the bulk of the Linux root partition lives beyond 1024 cyls.
Solution:  Mount the DOS partition, put the kernel there, and the boot
loaders.  Make /boot a symbolic link to /msdosc/linux. :-)  Lilo boots
Linux off the DOS partition nicely. :-)

... If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live.
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