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Forcing win32-loader to use i386?

Dear Lazyweb,

I’m happily using the win32-loader from goodbye-microsoft.com to install Debian/Etch on several Lenovo X61s subnotebooks which don’t have a DVD drive but a running XP preinstalled. The installer correctly detects a 64bit architecture and therefore installs AMD64. Unfortunately I want to run i386 on those machines. Is there a way to force a specific arch for the win32-loader?

Edit: Of course I already tried to install Debian from an USB stick on those machines, but the Debian installer refuses to work at the point where it’s unable to find the DVD/CD drive on the subnotebooks without one. I’ve tried netinst and businesscard, none of them worked from USB for me. Any hints?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 7:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Forcing win32-loader to use i386?”

  1. mika Says:
    December 5th, 2007 at 10:41 am

    Try booting http://grml.org/ (check out grml2usb for setting it up for use on a usb stick) and install Debian using debootstrap/grml-debootstrap (http://grml.org/grml-debootstrap/).

    HTH && regards,
    -mika-

  2. Steve McIntyre Says:
    December 5th, 2007 at 11:33 am

    The installer normally works fine for me from USB if you have followed the appropriate instructions and copied a CD ISO image on there too.

    Alternatively, I installed my own X60s using PXE - fast, easy and the way I’d recommend doing all laptop installations these days.

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