DSL from router PXE - laptop is hanging for half a minute from time to time

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[martyman]

Hello.

I have working PXE server on my OpenWRT router. My laptop is Pentium M 1.7, 1GB RAM (Centrino) and I can succesfuly run any other distibutions like SystemRescueCD, Parted  Magic and more... But I've got the problem with DSL.
I can use DSL on this laptop but when it ends booting, mouse cursor hangs for about half a minute. CPU fan is working fast and at the right top of screen i see CPU usage at 500% or even 700%. After half a minute everything is ok and I can work. This lag is coming back from time to time. TOP command can't help me to solve this problem (everythings is ok there). Another problem is when I try to use internet: internet is working only for a few seconds. I can load only one page. When I'm trying to load another page the lag from the beginning of my post is coming back. When I'm not trying to use the internet the lag is coming back seldom.
When internet is not working I write 'ifconfig' in console and there is no 'eth0' category. So I can run netcardconfig and reconect using dhcp and internet is working now for a few seconds again.

My config for DSL is:
label dsl                                                
menu label Dam^n Small Linux                             ??
  kernel dsl/linux24
  append ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us vga=792 apm=power-off initrd=dsl/minirt24.gz BOOT_IMAGE=KNOPPIX
but I've tried everything : atapicd noideraid nosound noapic noacpi acpi=off noscsi noapm nopcmcia nofirewire noagp nomce noddc  - with the same result.

Can anyone help me? Where should I start to search the problem?

Sorry for my 'not perfect' English. I'm writing from Poland.

[CNK]

That's a weird problem. I've never seen anything like it on a computer that isn't scratching for resources. Still, a few things come to mind.

First, if you exit X and go to the terminal, does the problem still occur? If so, then ignore the next two suggestions. Otherwise, for where I talk about editing files, you'll need a HDD install. If running from CD or a "frugal" install, just do a "killall" command e.g. "killall torsmo" and see if it solves the problem (not quite as certain as disabling it at startup though).
--edit: Or just exit X, edit the files in the RAM drive using nano and then do "startx" to bring up X again. If you've run System Rescue CD, I'll assume you're happy with the Linux terminal.

That resource monitor (torsmo) at the top right of the desktop updates I think at the rate your problem it happening and it includes a network monitor (which has never worked on any system I've used with the net). The program can be disabled by commenting it out of the file "/home/dsl/.xinitrc". If that fixes things and you still want it running, you could try editing its config file "/home/dsl/.torsmorc" to disable just the network monitoring function.

You could also try changing the window manager to fluxbox and right clicking on a desktop icon and choosing to exit DFM from the menu (or to do on startup, edit "/home/dsl/.desktop" to read:

Code:

      wm: fluxbox
       icons: 0

If all this fails (not unlikely), it might be time for a bit of research. If your laptop is a rather unusual modern design, the chipset it uses might not have been fully supported in the DSL kernel (version 2.4.31, the other distros you tried use much later versions). You might have to hit Google hard to find out. If so, then there may be a driver package that you could compile for DSL and load as module/s on startup (however it may also exist and not support kernel 2.4).

[martyman]

I've done all the things you wrote about but it didn't solve my problem. I've spent a lot of time searching if my chipset is fully supported by DSL's kernel and I didn't find the aswer.
I've decided not to use DSL on this laptop.

Thanks for help.

[CNK]

You could try DSL-N which uses the 2.6 kernel and hence has better support for more modern hardware.