peter rus
Group: Members
Posts: 22
Joined: Feb. 2006 |
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Posted: April 15 2006,08:44 |
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Doing a Damn Small Linux Harddisk install on the IBM Thinkpad 380ED
(or similar laptops)
This howto will explain how to install dsl (damn small linux) on the IBM Thinkpad 380ED or similar laptops. We will be doing a harddrive install because this is easier for newbies to linux to understand, if you like to do a frugal install later you can always do that by simply formatting your drive and begin al over (backup!). Also another thing to help newbies and elites aswell: i will explain a nice method to backup your files so you can always restore your system in case of trouble. In this howto i suppose you do not have any other osses on the laptop and do not plan to further use windows on this laptop in cooperation with dsl. Now, enough talking, grab your thinkpad, plug in the mains and lets roll those penguins!
First you will need to have the latest version of dsl downloaded and burned. When i mean burned, i mean burned the iso image in the right way to a cd, so not just burn the whole iso file to the cd like i did a long time ago, but use a imageburing tool like k3b or nero on windows. This way you will burn the contents of the iso to the cd, and if all goes right you will have an exact copy of the dsl cd's the big linux people have lying in their desks,
good, now insert the cd in your laptop and wait for it to boot, it doesnt boot? No problem: it is quite possible that your laptop doesn't support booting from cd, if you have the latest bios update for your 380ED this should be no problem though. If it is, then do the folowing: get the smart boot manager (sbm.bin) or the dsl bootfloppy image and burn this to a floppy using rawrite on windows or dd on linux. Now booting should be possible. When you see the dsl logo and are asked if you want to enter any parameters press F2 and enter: dsl 2. Now dsl will boot in Textmode only, like MS-DOS. As soon as it is booted give the folowing command: cfdisk. This command will start cfdisk, a utility to make or modify partitions on your harddrive. When you have more than 32 mb ram just make one big linux partition, write this to the harddisk and quit. If you have not that much ram, make a linux partition but leave 128mb free. Now make a swap partition of this 128mb of free space and write it all to the harddisk. Swap space functions just like the virtual memory in windows, its just a way to extend your ram memory. Press ctrl + alt + del to reboot.
When X (the dsl windowsmanager, the UI) is booted and you see all kind of weird colors, reboot dsl with the following parameters: fb800x600, this will possibly fix the problem. If X boots and all is fine you should see Dillo pop up with a help file. For now you can skip reading this, but be sure to read it after installing dsl. This will safe you a lot of time asking around!
When X is booted you can begin with your HD install. Right click the desktop and a menu pops up, this is like the windows start menu, now choose Apps -> Tools -> Install To Hard Drive. Enter hda1 as the partition to install dsl, hda1 should be your main linux partition, if not you should have seen this in cfdisk. When you are asked if you want to install a bootloader choose yes and choose for the lilo bootloader. After doing all this your system should reboot.
At this stage you will have dsl installed to your laptop and you are ready to costumize it  but hey! My sound is not working, well the solution is here, at least for the Crystal card which is standard in the 380ED. For other cards you can google for hits with "modprobe" and the type of your soundcard in them.
Making your soundcard work:
open a terminal and enter the following:
sudo beaver /opt/bootlocal.sh
now beaver (a text editor) will open and you will see the bootlocal.sh file, this file is like the AUTOEXEC.BAT file in windows. Add the following lines:
modprobe opl3 io=0x388
modprobe cs4232 io=0x534 irq=5 dma=1 dma2=0 mpuio=0x330 mpuirq=9
save the file and reboot dsl. After reboot your sound should be working.
When you have a internet connection you can download extra dsl extensions. They add a great value to your system. Sometimes i have encountered some problems with them, when you download them they should be installed automaticly, sometimes this does not happen because of some reason. Then use emelfm to install them. Just select the extension file (.dsl) and click the MyDsl button. These files are usually located in /tmp. That should be all. Dont like the app? Read further!
After installing the applications you like the time is right to make a backup of your working system, this can be done in multiple ways, you can remaster a dsl cd (which i have never done) or make a backup with the Backup/Restore tool. When you have started the app enter hda1 and click Backup. After this the window will disappear and the backup is made. You can upload this file (/backup.tar.gz) to your ftp storage or burn it on a cd or do whatever you want with it. dont forget to restart the backup tool and click the none button or dsl will backup and restore ecerytime you shutdown and reboot. and this takes ages!
If a application doesnt work and you cant solve the problem or you simply dont like the application. its not that simple to remove it (unlike other distributions of linux). The most easy way is to simply reinstall dsl (first reformat your drive) and then recover to the last working backup.
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