User Feedback :: Off to a bad start - whole lotta nuthin :(



Thought I'd give DSL a try based on a recomendation, I perused the website, notice that it is supposed to run on a windoze partition...

Background: Machine is a Pentium 166 w/ 32 megs RAM, my win98 partition has around 400 mb space, I thought this would be a good candidate.

I downloaded the embedded.zip file, something like DSL-3.0.1-embedded.zip or something like that... 50 megabytes

using winzip, I unzipped it to C:\DSL

here is the dos DIR listing after unzipping:

Volume in drive C is FREEGATE  
Volume Serial Number is 3521-00DB
Directory of C:\DSL

.              <DIR>        10-12-06 11:55a
..             <DIR>        10-12-06 11:55a
GERMAN   KBD           256  05-27-06  5:17p
LINUX24            994,807  05-27-06  5:17p
LOGO     16         36,649  05-27-06  5:17p
MINIRT24 GZ        801,359  05-27-06  5:17p
README   TXT         1,965  05-27-06  5:17p
SYSLINUX CFG         2,075  05-27-06  5:17p
KNOPPIX        <DIR>        10-12-06 11:55a
QEMU           <DIR>        10-12-06 11:56a
BOOT     MSG           110  05-27-06  5:17p
DSL-LI~1 SH            226  05-27-06  5:17p
DSL-WI~1 BAT           364  05-27-06  5:17p
F2                   1,592  05-27-06  5:17p
F3                   1,595  05-27-06  5:17p
QEMU-L~1 TXT           468  05-27-06  5:17p
       12 file(s)      1,841,466 bytes
        4 dir(s)     274,751,488 bytes free

So after reading the readme.txt and everything else, I ran:

dsl-windows.bat from within windoze98
one DOS box opened....
@echo off
START qemu

then another DOS box opened on top of it, something flashes by WAY to fast to read, then
'press any key to exit'

and that's it.

I currently use slackware 7, a full install with KDE, as well as dragonlinux lite (cli prompt only), while not a linux guru, I have a pretty basic grasp of the file system, and use the lynx broswer, PINE email, JOE and PICO text editors, etc etc, and in KDE I installed the opera browser and do email just fine with KMAIL

I also use the BasicLinux BL3 distro, which also runs on the dos/win98 partition, and zipslack, and have used pygmy linux and maybe a few other small distros......

soooooo.....where do I got from here ????

no, I don't have a cd rw  drive
don't have a USB pen drive
not ordering a CD at this point.....

I was hoping this would at least work 'out of the box' enough for me to get a CLI prompt.....  :(
Trying to run another OS, DSL, within a virtual machine Qemu while also running Windows in 32MB. Not going to happen. The basic Qemu virtual machine is requesting 64MB to even run. No wonder nothing happens.

Personally, I find running Qemu in 256MB unbearable.

Even running DSL natively but frugally will not be optimal in 32MB. A regular hard drive install with these hardware specs would be better.

However, if you want to try DSL then do the following.

1. Download and create the DSL boot floppy use rawrite.
2..Copy the KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file to c:\KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX
3. Change BIOS to boot from floppy

This is called running DSL in poorman's mode. The DSL image rsides in your windows partition and in a directory just off the C: root directory.

Check the Wiki for more information on creation of boot floppies and poormans instructions.
I haven't played  with the embedded version but if it is already on your harddrive see if the floppy bootdisk will find the Knoppix directory.

If that don't work maybe you can download tomsrootdisk, a bootdisk, mount the .iso to a partition like a poorman's install.
okay...I'll see if I can make a DSL boot disk and move the knopix file to c:\knopix

I have slackware root and boot disks handy...would that work ?

here is my hard drive setup

hda1  Boot   Primary   Win95 FAT32 (LBA)      4104.42
hda2         Primary   Linux ext2             4203.12
hda3         Primary   Linux swap              123.38
Pri/Log                Free Space              172.74


I've got slackware 7 on hda2, and hda3 is it's swap partition, as you can see, I've got 172 megs free space, what if I use cfdisk or fdisk to make that a linux ext partition for DSL, is that enough room????

what's the procedure.....?????
I'm guessing download to 50 megabyte .iso image, and somehow use rawrite to get that onto the new hda4 partition??? can slackware share the swap partition with dsl ???

thanks guys
LIMITED sucess, here's where we are....
grabbed bootfloppy.img and used windoze rawrite and made a bootable floppy,.....

booted up with floppy....and.....
it apparently found C:\KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX okay... got a picture of the
cute DSL penguin, and press <enter> to continue....then...


you passed an undefined node number (wait 30 seconds)

(connection reset by peer)
on X server ":0.0"
after 0 requests (0 known processed)
with 0 events remaining

dsl@tty1[dsl]$

...that's apparently the CLI prompt, root did nothing, no other consoles, was able to cd and look around all the dir's, and then type mc to run midnight commander and looked around, looked like a full distro to me....

sooooooooo......why no X ?????
doesn't like my video card?
where do I go from here?

btw, while cruising around with midnight commander, I hit CDROM to see if it would search my cd rom drive, instead, my C: drive came to live and then it showed all the dir's in my win98 fat 32 partition (where C:\KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX lives....

question....
if I were to enter the following at the prompt
touch this-is-a-file-i-just-made.txt

would it create that file?? where would it be stored ????
most of the bootup seemed pretty normal....
if found and apparently used my slackware's hda3 swap partition.....

what next guys ???????

this is my MAIN computer, I can't afford to have my MBR screwed up....should I stop now ???????
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