Laptops :: Help with installing on older laptop!



Okay, I'm a little confooozled.  

I downloaded DSL, made a CD of the "dsl-3.1-syslinuz.iso" file, and stuck it in my laptop.  It's an older laptop, a Fujitsu Lifebook 535T, 133 MHz Pentium, 16 MB RAM, 2 GB hard drive.

It scrolled through a lot of stuff that I didn't quite understand, not that I could read it fast enough, and now when I hit enter all I get is "dsl@tty1[dsl]$" in teal colored text.

How do I do stuff now?  

Sorry, I'm a longtime Windows/DOS user and I don't have a lot of experience in installing OSes.

Thanks in advance for any help!!

Mary Jo
what does it say right before that prompt?

this usually means that it failed to start up correctly. you can use a few commands at that prompt you get, try "sudo reboot" which should reboot the machine without you having to power off/onn again.

at the first prompt you get with the big dsl logo try pressing f2 or f3 to see bootcodes. i have never tried this on an old laptop so i dont know if it will work, but first try "failsafe" (just type failsafe and hit enter). if that doesnt work try 'sudo reboot' again and try more options.

if you know your laptops resolution(im guessing it will be 800x600) you can try typing "fb 800x600", unless it is has a different resolution, then choose whichever applies. i dont remember, but i think you may be able to use 2 bootcodes somehow, maybe just type one after another, but again i dont know.

if you know your bit depth you can try the vga codes "vga=xxx" ( vga=xxx )

try the wiki and forum search, i use those often. good luck.
1.  Well you got a prompt.  That's something.  From that you can edit text (vi, nano), view html documents (netrik), play with unix commands, etc.
2.  In response to 'frig', DO experiment with boot options.  You can most certainly enter more than one by typing them one after the other.  Any that conflict will follow the first one entered.  Note that most of your attempts will start with 'dsl'.  Thus:
boot: dsl lowram vga=791 nousb nopcmcia

or whatever.
Okay, I had to turn the computer off for a while because I don't know where my cooling pad is at the moment.

I rebooted it and a lot of stuff scrolled by fast but I did see a lot of failed and read only mentioned but I couldn't read it fast enough.

The last part says
"xinit: No such file or directory (errno 2): unable to connect to X server.
xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error."

and then it's the "dsl@tty1[dsl]$"

I tried the "sudo reboot" command and it just said:
"INIT: Switching to runlevel: 6
INIT: Sending processes the TERM signal"

F2 and F3 don't get any response.

When I typed "failsafe" it rebooted and this time it went to Windows.  And now it won't boot to DSL, just keeps going to Windows even though BIOS still says it's boot sequence is CD ROM first.

Ergh, I'm so confused!

Mary Jo
how long did you wait after the reboot command? or did it just freeze?

you are supposed to use f2/f3 at the dsl logo screen (it should say to hit f2/f3 for bootcodes there). that is also the place you are supposed to type in the bootcodes, such as "failsafe" or the vga commands, not at the teal colored prompt, just in case you didnt know.

if you are having troubles booting from cd you can make a boot floppy (
instructions ) then just set your BIOS to boot from the floppy drive.

alternively, if it just isnt working correctly at all you can try burning the ISO at the lowest speed you are able, and try again. sometimes ISOs can burn incorrectly.

dont get upset, linux can be frustrating the first time  :)
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