noorul@laptop:~$ lspci | grep Wireless
04:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05)


The installer keeps on looking for this firmware in /dev/fd0 (i.e floppy disk) which my machine don’t have and it loops. See below.


Feb 6 11:18:09 kernel: [ 210.472933] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
Feb 6 11:18:13 kernel: [ 214.710322] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Feb 6 11:18:26 kernel: [ 227.758197] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Feb 6 11:18:26 kernel: [ 227.758207] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
Feb 6 11:18:30 kernel: [ 231.454131] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
Feb 6 11:18:30 kernel: [ 231.454335] EXT3 FS on sda9, internal journal
Feb 6 11:18:30 kernel: [ 231.454338] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Feb 6 11:18:39 kernel: [ 240.810198] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Feb 6 11:18:39 kernel: [ 240.810207] FAT: unable to read boot sector
Feb 6 11:18:52 kernel: [ 253.874008] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Feb 6 11:19:05 kernel: [ 266.933613] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Feb 6 11:19:05 kernel: [ 266.933630] attempt to access beyond end of device
Feb 6 11:19:05 kernel: [ 266.933633] fd0: rw=0, want=66, limit=8
Feb 6 11:19:05 kernel: [ 266.933636] isofs_fill_super: bread failed, dev=fd0, iso_blknum=16, block=32


As a solution, I choose “expert mode” installation and before setting Network devices, I switched over to another virtual terminal (Alt-F2) and got a shell. I ran “ethdetect” command there so that this runs as a separate process independent of the installer. This step will not block the installer and you can continue with setting up network from the menu skipping detecting network devices.

I followed the following steps to compile emacs-unicode from CVS.

1. Checkout latest source for emacs-unicode.

cd /opt
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.savannah.gnu.org:/sources/emacs co -r emacs-unicode-2 emacs

2. I had a problem with NSTATICS constant in emacs/src/alloc.c when compiling. I think you might face the same problem. You have to change the value of this constant. You have to look for the definition of this constant in emacs/src/alloc.c. I did the following. May be a lower value will also work. Commented the existing definition and added mine.

/* #define NSTATICS 1280 */
#define NSTATICS 2048

3. Now use configure script to generate make files.

cd /opt/emacs
./configure  --with-gtk --enable-font-backend --with-xft  --with-freetype

4. At last the make command

make bootstrap

It took around 5 hours for me to figure out the NSTATICS problem. I hope this will help some of you. If this helps any one of you then drop me a mail. I will be happy.