liberty young wrote:
> I'm using a CD, which has a complete /lib/modules/2.2.20 tree (and
> the installer uses 2.2.20)..the problem is that 2.2.20 doesn't
> support my Ethernet Card, and I want to do a network Install.
> 
> I've already tried going into the console and manually entering the 
> proper driver..but the proper driver doesn't exist yet! I know a
> later 2.4.x kernel will do, i was just hoping that there was a CD
> install that uses a precompiled 2.4.x kernel.

CD's 2 through 5 will each boot a different ``flavor'' depending on
which CD-ROM is inserted.  Here's how the flavors are laid out on the
different CD-ROMs:

CD 1 - Allows a selection of kernel images to boot from (the idepci
flavor is the default if no selection is made).

CD 2 - Boots the `vanilla' flavor.

The standard kernel package available in Debian. This includes almost
all drivers supported by Linux built as modules, which includes drivers
for network devices, SCSI devices, sound cards, Video4Linux devices,
etc. The `vanilla' flavor includes one rescue floppy, one root and four
driver floppies.

CD 3 - Boots the `compact' flavor.

Like `vanilla', but with many of the less-frequently-use drivers removed
(sound, v4l, etc). In addition, it has built in support for several
popular PCI Ethernet devices — NE2000, 3com 3c905, Tulip, Via-Rhine and
Intel EtherExpress Pro100. These built in drivers allow you to take full
advantage of the Debian installer's net install feature to install the
driver floppies over the network so that only the root and rescue floppy
disks need to be made. Finally, `compact' also supports several common
RAID controllers: DAC960, and Compaq's SMART2 RAID controllers. The
`compact' flavor includes one rescue floppy, one root and two driver disks.

CD 4 - Boots the `idepci' flavor.

Kernel that supports only IDE and PCI devices (and a very small number
of ISA devices). This kernel should be used if the SCSI drivers in the
other flavors cause your system to hang on startup (probably because of
resource conflicts, or a misbehaving driver/card in your system.) The
`idepci' flavor also has a built-in ide-floppy driver so that you can
install from LS120 or ZIP devices.

CD 5 - Boots the `bf2.4' flavor.
This is an experimental flavor which uses a special version of the
kernel-image-2.4 package. It provides support for newer hardware
components which is absent in the other (more stable) flavors. It
supports more USB hardware, USB keyboards/mice, modern IDE controllers,
some new network cards, and Ext3 and Reiser file systems. Compared to
the driver set of our main kernel-image-2.4.x-yz packages, some
non-essential drivers have been removed in order to keep the number of
needed floppy disks in a sane range. If you have unexplainable problems
with kernel 2.4, you should use other flavors. If you need more new
drivers or optimisations for your CPU type, feel free to install an
"official" kernel-image-2.4.x-yz package. This flavor comes with one
rescue floppy, one root and four driver floppies.


-- 
Chris Lewis
shadow@digitalnirvana.com
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If it compiles, it is good, if it boots up it is perfect.
       - Linus Torvalds
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