Notes after HD Install on IBM 560X with no CD Rom

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: Notes after HD Install on IBM 560X with no CD Rom
started by: deet

Posted by deet on Nov. 21 2004,22:16

These are my notes after completing a HD Install on an IBM 560X laptop with no CD Rom.

Specs:
IBM 560X Laptop
1.44 floppy drive
No CD Rom drive
Pentium I MMX 233mhz
96MB RAM
4 GB HD
3com EtherLink III 3C589D-TP PCMCIA network ethernet card

I had this machine lying around and thought it might make a good browsing / email machine. I would rate myself a Linux noob+.

I started off by following the instructions < here >. This worked fairly well. I had to manually config the IP as described. I seem to recall that I had some trouble with the DNS but it all eventually worked. I made 2 2GB partitions.

At this point I had the poormans boot floppy thing working.

I had quite a bit of trouble figuring out the screen thing. I had the rgb inversion problem with xvesa. Worse, I couldn't apply the suggested fixes from the forums because cntrl-alt-backspace resulted in a blue screen (it was in text mode but I couldn't see it -- although the HD light went on when I did ls). So, I had to use the other video setting. After some investigation, I discovered the best way of handling video was at the "boot:" to type "fb800x600" only. Then selelct the fb video mode.

Next, I wanted to do the HD install into the empty partition. I did this sucessfully but mkliloboot failed. The reason was that the HD install script did not copy the KNOPPIX directory over into the target partition. I found out this was the problem by reading other forum posts. Unless someone can explain to me otherwise THIS APPEARS TO BE A BUG IN THE HD INSTALL SCRIPT. I copied over KNOPPIX and ran mkliloboot again and it worked.

I then wanted to install Firefox 1. I had to edit the apt .list file to change the word "stable" to "unstable" to allow the command "apt-get install mozilla-firefox" to work.

At this point I am pretty happy at this point as I have a good browsing / email machine. The sound doesn't work but I have seen some advice < here >. However, I don't know where to do this to in DSL (remember I am a self-rated noob+). If I wanted to enter a modprobe command on startup, where is the file that I need to edit?

The only other hassle is that the laptop CMOS battery is dead so I get error 161 and 163 everything the machine boots which makes me enter a date and time. Does DSL do a NTP sync on startup? Can it?

Finally, in terms of feedback, I would make 2 points. First, I think the hd install should be checked to make sure the KNOPPIX directory is handled properly. Second, the forums are very hard to search. The reason is there are so many posts. As I tried to figure things out I searched the forums a lot. I often recieved many many recent posts for any search. But often I was searching for more broad knowledged of things that were probably answered a long time ago. They were just hard to find. Perhaps a more extensive how-to section might help, or the use of sticky-posts for items that noobs need to reference more.

But, I got through it and DSL has intrigued me to think about a USB key project.

Posted by cbagger01 on Nov. 22 2004,23:25

The script where your bootup commands go is called:

/opt/bootlocal.sh

FYI, You may be able to narrow down your search results with a keyword string that contains boolean operators like:

usb AND boot

If you type:

usb boot

you will get all posts that contain "usb" OR "boot" unless you use the "AND" operator.

Posted by Max on Nov. 23 2004,01:30

I am using DSL on this exact machine and get the bios errors at boot also. Took me a while to get the sound figured out too. But ke4nt1 came to the rescue with this post....

< IBM 560X Sound Config >

My only gripe on this machine is that sometimes the keyboard & mouse lock up after you shut the screen and re-open. Alt-Ctrl Bksp doesn't work and Alt-Ctrl Delete works about 1/3 of the time. But...I still close the screen because it never blanks. I've read some posts (not DSL) about trying to get the ACPI functions working with this machine but it seemed like just too much trouble.

Posted by petergunn on Nov. 23 2004,02:11

Im on an IBM Thinkpad 560Z and that sound config works for me as well. I had a bit of an adventure installing without a CDROM as well. Works great now tho :-)

Now if I could only get Xvesa to work. Xvfb is kind of slow, and I seem to have to use Shift+Insert to paste even though I have 3 button mouse emulation on in XF86Config.

I also have the same problem with X windows freezing sometimes after a suspend. Not as frequent as mentioned above tho. Most common problem is that keyboard freezes on resume.

PG.

Posted by deet on Nov. 24 2004,03:42

Thanks for the responses everyone. They helped. I now have sound working.

Deet :cool: