Laptops :: DSL install on old Hitachi Visionbook4000



I have been trying to install any distro of Linux on this old Hitachi Visionbook 4000 series notebook that I have lying around. I need to use this computer for my development workhorse, as my Vaio is not suitable for a number of reasons, the most prominent being the lack of a real serial port, and my not being able to use any adapters for my development boards.

So far I have not  been able to install any distros other than an old Debian2.1, which has some corrupted content so is not a keeper.

When I try installing any newer distros, including the DSL cd I have, I get the following err message;

ISOlinux 1.76 Mandrakelinux iso linux! Loading spec packet failed, trying to wing it....
ISOlinux! Failed to located cdrom device; boot failed
[END] (ps, this is the message from Mandriva2006cd in case you wondered, but the message is the same for DSL..)

I have recieved one piece of advice from another forum, which suggests that my machine may be so old that the BIOS is expecting a kernel size no larger thn that of a floppy, so I should download a DSL-syslinux image for it to work??

I need some advice, as I really just want the DSL along with a win98se on the unit. I would like to have a dual boot setup, but am willing to do whatever it takes to get it happening. It has a bit over 1Gb HD and only one cdrom, no DVD's or floppies here, not even the USB works anymore, it busted a while back.

Thanks in advance for any help with this...
Yes the syslinux version uses a boot image limited to the size of a real floppy. Many older computers will not boot from an isolinux cdrom where no such restriction occurs.

So, download dsl-2.3-syslinux.iso and try it.
It is made for just such computers.

Let us know.
Alright, thanks for that confirmation, I have a couple questions, likely supernewbieish, but firstly, my good laptop has a dual boot system with Suse10, so I do have a running system up but have had problems with burning and using .iso images each time I've tried so far, maybe you would be able to clarify the steps generally taken when one needs to convert an .iso image into a running program?

My target piece of shlaptop currently has only a bare bones Debian distro which occupies the complete HD, this was just done as an experiment. Ideally when I get my Win98se disks tomorow I want to split the HD into two equal OS partitions, starting with the win98se and then the DSL.(again, the debian is corrupted and hardly werking, so it goes.) Target has no hardware to get online, so unless I was mistaking your intended advice, the downloading the image(into the target) option is a nogo(although I could download into the Vaio and burn to cd?), or is it that the syslinux .iso is a completely different compilation than my DSL2.0cd? The question is how would I go about this, first the win98se install and then...? (Then if the syslinux .iso is a different beast than my cd I could do my cdrom install and get my ideal setup?), or?

I guess the next question is about my partitioning, as I have used Partition Magic in the past as well as just supplied partitioning software, but with the Win98se and DSL am I going to want/have to use PM to resize the win98se or can I count on the same results as I got when installing Suse10 beside WinXPhome?(I think Suse auto-resized the winxp to split the 1HD into equal halves for both OS's..)??

Anyways, I've gone on enough for now, but I appreciate any pointers, even if they are all over the place like my questions.
Alright, thanks for that confirmation, I have a couple questions, likely supernewbieish, but firstly, my good laptop has a dual boot system with Suse10, so I do have a running system up but have had problems with burning and using .iso images each time I've tried so far, maybe you would be able to clarify the steps generally taken when one needs to convert an .iso image into a running program?

My target piece of shlaptop currently has only a bare bones Debian distro which occupies the complete HD, this was just done as an experiment. Ideally when I get my Win98se disks tomorow I want to split the HD into two equal OS partitions, starting with the win98se and then the DSL.(again, the debian is corrupted and hardly werking, so it goes.) Target has no hardware to get online, so unless I was mistaking your intended advice, the downloading the image(into the target) option is a nogo(although I could download into the Vaio and burn to cd?), or is it that the syslinux .iso is a completely different compilation than my DSL2.0cd? The question is how would I go about this, first the win98se install and then...? (Then if the syslinux .iso is a different beast than my cd I could do my cdrom install and get my ideal setup?), or?

I guess the next question is about my partitioning, as I have used Partition Magic in the past as well as just supplied partitioning software, but with the Win98se and DSL am I going to want/have to use PM to resize the win98se or can I count on the same results as I got when installing Suse10 beside WinXPhome?(I think Suse auto-resized the winxp to split the 1HD into equal halves for both OS's..)??

Anyways, I've gone on enough for now, but I appreciate any pointers, even if they are all over the place like my questions.

original here.