How can I convert my debian machine to Fedora?

[Bret Hughes]

On Mon, 2005-04-25 at 22:01, Ken Young wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Apr 2005, Bret Hughes wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 2005-04-25 at 19:38, Ken Young wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > >    I'm trying to get Fedora running on an MVME 2700 single board computer.
> > > This little board has a 750 PowerPC processor.   I've got Debian 3.1
> > > running happily atop the 2.6.11.7 kernel.   It runs like a champ, but I'd
> > > like to try running Fedora instead of Debian.   This single board computer
> > > (we've actually got ~35 of them) has no CDROM drive, and I had to do
> > > quite a bit of horsing around with the kernel configuration to get it
> > > to boot anyway (via NFS), so there's no way for me to just boot off of the
> > > iso image CDROMs and install Fedora normally.   Is there any way I can
> > > install from the CDROM images (which, of course, I can mount
> > > with the "-o loop" option) without booting from the CDROMs?   Is
> > > there a script somewhere that will install a minimal set of RPMs
> > > somewhere in my files system, so that I can later mount that area as root?
> > > Is there any way to do a network install without first booting off a
> > > CDROM?
> >
> > While not familiar with debian, I have done countless no media installs
> > with various hardware configs.  You should be able to boot the install
> > kernel and initrd using your bootloader and walk through the install.
> 
> Thanks very much for your quick reply.   Booting the install kernel
> is precisely what I'm trying to avoid.   I've got a working kernel,
> and I had to tweek quite a few parameters in the .config in
> the kernel tree to build something that would work in this weird
> little computer (I initially cross-compiled on an x86 workstation,
> but now I can compile the kernel natively under Debian).   I
> don't think I can boot the install kernel, so
> what I'm trying to do is see if there's some way I can jump into the
> installation process at a later step.   For example, can I manually
> invoke the initrd from the CDROM after booting my kernel?   Or can
> I issue commands that would be equivalent to what initrd does?
> Or is there just some list of RPMs I could load into some area that
> would constitute a minimal distribution of Fedora which I could
> subsequently mount as root?
> 

hmm.  I really do not know what is in the install kernel that enables
the launch of the installation.  I suppose, as you indicate that it is
the initscripts in the initrd.  I would try the redhat anaconda list. 
Anaconda being the installation program for redhat.  The guys on that
list and the kickstart list are extremely knowledgeable about the entire
process.

have you tried to boot the kernel?  At some point I think you are going
to bang into module version discrepancy issues and will have to rebuild
a kernel anyway.  I suspect that there is a way to rebuild anaconda and
the install kernel so that you will have the options needed for your
hardware.

FWIW I believe that there is also a redhat embedded list that probably
has some guys using some pretty funky hardware.
 Here is a list of all the redhat lists:

http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/

looks like anaconda-devel-list is a decent bet.

Bret


Sorry I can't be more help.