RE: MBR 13FA

["Chris Harrison" <theguru@ii.net>]

install-mbr is the program that you are accessing.
Try looking at man install-mbr to tell you how it works.


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul A. Thomas [mailto:bluewhale@jaxkneppers.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, 2 January 2002 12:12 PM
To: Debian List
Subject: MBR 13FA

Hi.

    My first install is functional, but apparently I made an improper
choice in at least one instance as the system gives the following prompt
when boot up is attempted from the hard drive :

MBR FA13:

( One hard drive with half a dozen Linux only partitions, one of which
is marked as bootable:    Debian was installed to that partition )

Hitting the 'F' key allows me to boot up properly from the floppy.
Hitting the 'A' key changes the prompt to read

1234F:

Using CFDISK to change the hard drive so that the partition where Linux
was installed ( I believe - HDA7 which is the only partition of type
'ext2' which I did specify during installation) changes the boot prompt
to read

MBR 13:


1:  What program can I use to redirect the boot process to the proper
partition on the hard drive? Changing settings using CFDISK has not
yielded anything useful, and I doubt modifying a config file would
affect the initial boot process (??)  Searching 'MBR 13FA' yields
basically nothing either in Google or at Debian.org and my knowledge of
Linux/Unix does not yet allow me to form questions using the proper
verbiage or tags, tho the results are often interesting.

2:  Is Debian version 2.2.r4 also known as 2.2.19 ? The CD's I
downloaded from cdimage.debian.org state they are Potato, Stable and
dated Nov 5 2001, however I note that one or more of the programs run at
login state they are part of version 2.2.19... ( I have seen mention of
2.2.24 more than once but am not sure where/why )  Does Debian use older
portions of prior releases without updating their echo line or did I
make more than the one or two mistakes I thought I made?

3:  During setup I chose to manually install applications instead of
taking bulk packaged sets.  A minute later I realized there were
thousands of programs on the CD's and the web and that I had no idea
what most of them were.  Short of running the installation program
again, is there a command line program which allows me to at least place
a few 'basic' packages up?


Thank you

            Paul