Laptops :: Toshiba Satellite Pro 420CDT

The liveCD bootup process will scan your partition tables any dynamically build a new /etc/fstab on-the-fly.

So you just need to make sure that:

1) You have created a swap partition with a tool like cfdisk.

2) you have formatted it using a tool like mkswap or something like that.

Something like toms root boot floppy disk can get these tasks accomplished.

Then DSL will automatically detect the swap partition and start using it.

You can also go back in time and use DSL version 0.5.3.1 if you have no other choice.

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So you just need to make sure that:

1) You have created a swap partition with a tool like cfdisk.

2) you have formatted it using a tool like mkswap or something like that.

fdisk returns:

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/dev/hda1 83
/dev/hda2 82
/dev/hda3 83

All 83's are formatted to ext2, and I've mkswap'd /dev/hda2 - under boote I can swapon /dev/hda2 and free returns:

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Swap: 127004

So it's definitely working, however I can't boot the system from the cd (although I can mount it in boote) so I'm using the boot floppy (which also picks up & reads the cdrom) - I've edited syslinux.cfg's userdef to read:

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LABEL userdef
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND ramdisk_size=8192 init=/etc/init lang=uk vga=788 nosound noapic noscsi nodma noapm nousb nopcmcia nofirewire noagp nomce nodhcp xmodule=vesa initrd=miniroot.gz BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

I'm just rebooting now to retrieve the error I recieve...

Here we go:

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<1>Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 7327e0f4
printing eip:
c012cc95
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0000
cloop
CPU: )
EIP: 0010:[<c012cc95>] Not tainted
EFLAGS: 00010086

Hex here

Process linuxrc (pid: 7, stackpage=c0c69000)

More hex

<0>Kernel panic: Aiee, killing interrupt handler!
In interrupt handler - not syncing

After that, I'm confronted with a flashing caps lock. If I set ramdisk_size=0 in syslinux.cfg, I return a different error - rebooting now.

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hda:task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekCOmplete Error }
hda: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
hda 2654280 sectors (1359 MB) w/129KiB Cache, CHS=658/64/63

CD all ok:

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hdc: ATAPI 6X CD_ROM drive, 128kB Cache
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12

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Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2hda3
ide: late registration of driver.

Is this part of my problem?

Anyway, at the bottom:

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Freeing initrd memory: 482k freed
EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
FAT: unable to read boot sector
isofs_read_super: bread failed, dev=01:00 iso_blknum=16, block 32
kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 01:01

Now, the ONLY partitions in this system are two blank ext2's and a swap, so is it talking about the now 0 sized ramdisk?

If it's possible, I'm really beginning to think booting the CD from within a floppy distro is the best option. Any thoughts?

I've come to a conclusion, and I hope you concur: I don't have enough memory. I need more memory.

In the meantime however, If it were possible to get the boot floppies to use either a swap file from an ext2 partition or the swap partition itself, I could possibly get this thing to boot. I've been playing with the size of the ramdisk in syslinux.cfg, and I can trim it down to three Mb safely, leaving me a little over 12Mb of memory remaining...

I need swap. Damn this old non-bootable CD

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