loads but nothing

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: loads but nothing
started by: watupgroupie

Posted by watupgroupie on July 04 2007,04:28

My problem is that when i download the 3.4 release, burned it to disk and ran it on my older pc it just loaded everthing and then the screen goes black. The cd drive light blinks a lot and stops after awhile also. Is this because of a graphics problem or not good enough system?

Posted by curaga on July 04 2007,09:04

Try booting with "failsafe"

Posted by watupgroupie on July 04 2007,15:25

Ok thanx i got it to load from that. But i have a couple of problems.
1. what is the best screen setup i should use because right now when i go through all the screen and mouse steps and it finially boots up all the colors are all red and dark

2. How would i go about installing a audio recording program if at all possible. Could you even use a mic?

3. If I wanted to save something onto my harddrive for future use how would i do it? I'm currently just running the livecd and very new to this kinda stuff. My hdd is formated but it would be nice to run off of the hdd so it runs faster and other stuff. Is it possible to access a floppy disk and take stuff off of it as i have no internet on this junker.

Posted by curaga on July 04 2007,15:49

1 might be from a weird graphics card. Is it the same with the other X server?

2 Audacity. Records from a mic fine ;) I've made some mp3 ringtones with it. You'll like what altering speed and other effects do to speech ;)

3 You should read some new-to-linux docs.. But to access another device, you need to "join" it in. In linux it's called mounting. So you join the contents of a device into a directory somewhere and if you move stuff to that directory, they will be on the device mounted there.. If you want to run off HD there are many options for HD installs..

Posted by watupgroupie on July 04 2007,16:06

Could you reccomend the best way for a HD instillation? Also once i intall it to the HD would i have to mount the HD so i'm not saving stuff onto the ram.

EDIT: i fixed my colors also. I changed the color depth to 32 bit. Now i just need to find the right resolution

Posted by curaga on July 04 2007,17:26

If you install to HD, HD is always automatically mounted..

If you want speed and ability to edit any file, go with traditional Debian-style HD install
If you want to upgrade easily, take frugal HD
Choice between grub and lilo? Take grub.. Easier to configure

Posted by watupgroupie on July 04 2007,21:49

Thank you so much for all of your help. I'm running it off through the HD using grub. How do i get it to reckonize my speakers though it doesn't seem to pick them up. Do i need to install drivers?

ps: thanx for all your help and you earned my respect and i'd pay you if i wasn't 13

Posted by curaga on July 05 2007,08:54

There is no way for a computer to know if speakers are there.. Line-out is one-way..
Unless you have usb speakers?
Is your sound card recognized on boot?

Posted by watupgroupie on July 05 2007,17:18

No i don't have usb speakers. I don't think it's reconizing my sound card. My sound used to work when i had windows 98 and then i formated it when it stopped working right.

Posted by curaga on July 05 2007,17:46

What sound card is it?
Is it on-board, pci, isa?

Posted by watupgroupie on July 06 2007,05:01

I know the soundcard is on board but i can't figure out what it is because it's not detecting it anywhere maybe its broke, it is an old pc and hasn't been used in forever. Although it does have internal sound (pc beeping). Also is it possible to get internet through it when it doesn't have ethernet ports and only has dialup ports. I have high speed and it would be nice to get online wired or wirelesly but with the hardware i don't think it's possible (modem probably to slow to) so would it work if you installed new modem and stuff if at all possible.

Posted by curaga on July 06 2007,08:38

1) to know which one it is, you could open it up and look at the chips ;)
Or, if it was a readymade one, google on it's model number.
If all else fails, pc speaker can be used as a real speaker (I did that on Windows 3.1.. Brings back memories)

2) You can. You can get internet through any port. Modem, serial, parallel, infrared...
If you have a choice between these, buy a paraller port "laplink" cable, it's the fastest. But for all of these you need another linux box, as Window$ internet connection sharing only shares to ethernet..

Posted by lucky13 on July 06 2007,12:16

Quote

I know the soundcard is on board but i can't figure out what it is

You can use the menu to go to system - stats (or from a terminal, type stats.lua). There's a tab that will show you hardware detected.

Posted by curaga on July 06 2007,12:20

He said the soundcard wasn't detected.. Though it's good to check

Posted by watupgroupie on July 06 2007,23:39

Thanx guy's well i've given up on the sound i tried lucky's idea and got no succes it's just not picking up. How would i go about making it use the internal speakers? Also would it be possible to install a wireless card so i can pick up my wireless internet?

Posted by lucky13 on July 07 2007,00:46

Use your internal speakers for what? You should have some output related to sound card on which ever tab it is in stats.lua. Step one is getting something detected so the appropriate module can load and then your computer can process audio.

You shouldn't have much trouble setting up wireless if you read the wiki entries for it.
< http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Verified_Wireless_Cards >

Posted by watupgroupie on July 07 2007,02:20

Quote (lucky13 @ July 06 2007,20:46)

I can't get anything to load at all related to sound i looked through everything on that menu and there's nothing to do with sound. Thanx for the wireless cards link, now to find one that doesn't require usb.

Posted by watupgroupie on July 07 2007,16:49

Sorry for the double post but it also say's that it's skipping apm bios detection on setup so that maybe part of the problem. It's also skipping numerous other things. How would i get it to stop skipping these things.

Posted by lucky13 on July 07 2007,19:04

It's either skipping because of your GRUB/LILO configuration or because of the age of your hardware. Does your BIOS support APM? That won't affect a sound card, which is most likely either onboard or PCI.

Posted by stupid_idiot on July 08 2007,07:21

If it is an ISA soundcard, the process could be VERY troublesome. I think that since the soundcard is not detected upon boot, it is most likely an ISA soundcard.
Try this simple method first:
If you have diffculty in finding the brand and model of the soundcard, I suggest looking up the brand and model of the computer on Google.com. You may find hardware specifications for that model, including the model of the soundcard. If you don't mind posting the brand and model of your computer here, we can help you with the searching too.
Once we know the soundcard model, we will know what kernel module to load with `modprobe`. Hopefully, once we do this, the soundcard will be detected.

There is also a more complicated method in case the simple method doesn't work. Kernel modules for ISA hardware are typically configured to initialize the piece of hardware using default values for a set of parameters. If for some reason, the default system resources are not available (due to other devices hogging resources), the kernel module will be unable to initialize the hardware using these default values. Then, what you must do is reassign another set of system resources to the hardware using `pnpdump` and `isapnp` (I will talk about them later).
When you have done the reassignment, you can `modprobe` the kernel module. Your must specify the newly-assigned system resources (io port, irq, dma ports) for your soundcard by appending additional arguments to the `modprobe module_name` command.
Just what are these very-confusing 'parameters'? I will explain later, but for now, let's install the `pnpdump` and `isapnp` programs first.
They are part of the 'isapnptools' package. You can get it from
< here >.
Then, install using `dpkg -i`:
`dpkg -i isapnptools_1.26-5_i386.deb`
That's it. You can now use `pnpdump` and `isapnp`.

`isapnp` is the program reassigns system resources for ISA cards. It uses a configuration file generated by `pnpdump`. What `pnpdump` does is scan your system and then output a configuration file. You choose the location and filename for this configuration file. You edit the configuration file to assign system resources to your ISA card(s). Then you pass this configuration file to `isapnp` by doing `isapnp your_configuration_file`; `isapnp` will activate your ISA card(s) using the system resources you have specified in the configuration file.

1. First, use `pnpdump` to generate the configuration file. The location and filename can be anything of your choice:
e.g.
`pnpdump -o /home/dsl/isapnp.conf`

2. Before we pass this file to `isapnp`, we must edit it. Open it with your favourite editor. The configuration file is made up of many segments (segment = one chunk of many lines). Each ISA card in the PC will have at least one segment dedicated to it. Each segment comprises a specific configuration (a designated IRQ, an IO port, and an 8-bit and 16-bit DMA port respectively) for a card. You will notice that in this configuration file, all lines are commented (i.e. they all start with '#'). You must choose a segment that refers to your soundcard (i.e "CONFIGURE name_of_your_soundcard"). Uncomment all the lines with keywords - keywords are words in CAPITALS. The usual keywords are CONFIGURE, INT, DMA, IO, and ACT (which always comes at the end of each segment). Once you have properly enabled a segment, exit the editor and run `isapnp` using the configuration file:
e.g.
`isapnp /home/dsl/isapnp.conf`
If the above command is successful, we can `modprobe` the correct kernel module, using the values you chose in your configuration file. You should probably read the info for that kernel module, in order to know how to use the correct values together with `modprobe`.
To access a module's info, do:
`modinfo module_name`
All sound modules are found in '/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/' - try finding a module to match your soundcard (assuming you already guessed the brand and model); so, for example:
`modinfo sb`
or
`modinfo cs4232`
and so on.. You will see a list of possible parameters and their possible values.
I've used a SoundBlaster SB16 in the past, so I'll use it as an example here:
(The module for the SB16 is 'sb'. If you look at `modinfo sb` you should be able to understand the syntax for the following line.)
`modprobe sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=0 dma16=5`
Other soundcard modules probably have identical parameter names as the ones above, since these are the most essential - but it is better to check anyway.
Just make sure to use exactly the values that you uncommented in your isapnp configuration, and `modprobe` will probably detect your soundcard.

p.s. I understand that this howto is very complicated. I am very sorry about this.

Posted by watupgroupie on July 08 2007,22:41

Ok so my computer is a nec ready 9012 or the model number is MT-1720-24812C so far i've turned up nothing useful and just about ready to move on to the more complicated method.

Posted by curaga on July 09 2007,08:31

You really should open it up. Takes only some minutes and no fuss. It should always work ;)

Posted by curaga on July 09 2007,08:53

I found something: I think the sound chip is Opti 89c930. Check if you find something like that inside?

Posted by stupid_idiot on July 09 2007,10:11

Quote (curaga @ July 09 2007,12:53)

I found something: I think the sound chip is Opti 89c930.

From googling, it seems the module for this sound chip is 'mad16'.
So, we could try `modprobe mad16` and see if it works.

Posted by watupgroupie on July 09 2007,16:36

Screw this i'm opening it up. Theres no one around. Last time my brother got mad at me when i started unscrewing it.

EDIT: Ok i opened it up. I didn't know where to look so i put it back together. Now when i turn it on it beeps about 15 times and nothing happens on the screen. What the hell is going on.

EDIT#2: Ok its all good now. I reopened it and made sure all the connections were all good and put it back together and it works again. Now i need to know what the hell i'm looking for before i just pop it open again.

Posted by curaga on July 09 2007,18:39

A big square black chip with text on it
on the big flat board

if I'm right, the text will begin with "Opti"

Posted by watupgroupie on Nov. 17 2007,18:56

Quote (curaga @ July 09 2007,14:39)

A big square black chip with text on it
on the big flat board

if I'm right, the text will begin with "Opti"

I turned on that old pc again a while ago and decided to reboot this topic because i want sound again. I don't know if your still on here curaga but you were right. The sound card is a opti 82C930 it took me awhile to find it because it isn't a big chip but quite small compared to the other one's. Is there anyone here that can still help me with this. If you don't know what i'm talking about look back at earlier posts.
Thanx

Posted by curaga on Nov. 18 2007,14:44

Hiya, yeah I'm still around ;)

As ^hats^ suggested, now's the time to load the mad16 module.
Open a root terminal, and type "modprobe mad16". Wait a couple of secs, then type "dmesg" and post the last few lines, they will say if your card was found..