A Linux Resistant PC
Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: A Linux Resistant PC
started by: Soambah
Posted by Soambah on May 08 2006,19:34
Hi folks! I need some help here. I've come to you because of the success stories I read here from folks who got DSL to run on really ancient hardware like 386 systems with 12 megs of ram. Well, it seems I've run into a "Linux resistant" system. Specs are below. My purpose was to test using a live CD as an alternate way to dump Windows C: drives to CDs. After Testing fine on a different system, a Knoppix live CD didn't work so I tried DSL including version 0.5 and others. Tried all kinds of cheat codes and hardware changes - different CDs, more RAM etc. After way too much research it seems that no distro, Live CD, or even tomsrtbt floppy can get past "Ok...Booting the Kernel" with a flashing cursor below and no keyboard response. Thats it! No error messages. No kernel panics. Nada - nothing - it just stops. This system, however, runs win2k! It runs win98se. Each OS is on it's own HD which can be swapped out while the box is unpowered. I'd really like to get Linux on this PC. Hmmm...maybe if Linux won't run on this box I could "patent" the "Linux resistant PC" and sell it to Bill?? - LOL Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. System specs:
Mobo: Biostar 8500TUC
Bios: Ami tuc0530b.rom 1-19-01
Chipset: Intel 440HX
CPU: Intel Pentium 200 (no MMX)
L2 Cache: 512k on board
RAM: 64Megs fast page SIMMs (no DIMM sockets)
HD: ATA 33 (Removable tray for various HD & OS)
CD: TEAC 8x
Video: Matrox Millennium PCI
Display: Dell 17" (Plug & Play monitor)
Sound: Ensoniq VIVO (ISA)
Mouse & Kbd: generic PS2
Modem - none
NIC - none
USB - none
Printer - none
Cheers,
Soambah
Posted by doobit on May 08 2006,19:47
Doesn't sound like Linux resistance, just Live CD resistance. There is a version of the live CD called dsl-2.3-syslinux.iso that you should try. Also, can you set the BIOS to boot from the CDROM first? If not, then you may need to make a boot floppy.
Posted by Soambah on May 09 2006,14:40
doobit, thanks for the speedy response! I'm afraid I may have been unclear. "Boot form CD first" is set in the bios and all live CDs and tomsrtbt floppy do BOOT. Also, I have tried the "dsl-2.3-syslinux" version but each time, all I get is:Loading vmlinuz...............................
Loading miniroot,gz..................
Ready.
Uncomptrssing Linux... OK, booting the kernel.
On the left below the last line there is a flashing cursor (the underscore character).
The screen stays up but it behaves as if the CPU stopped - no response to the keyboard. Power is on. HD is spinning. CD drawer will open & close.
I have let it sit like that for hours and nothing else happens (power management is disabled in the bios).
I have also tried the "Astrumi" live CD. It allows you to run "MemTest" before loading Linux. I have booted from it and run "MemTest" straight off the CD (RAM passed) but letting it try to load Linux only yields the same results as shown above.
I am truely baffled. Any other ideas?
Posted by clivesay on May 09 2006,14:46
I know you've said you've tried bootcodes but have you tried the specific dsl bootcode of 'lowram'? It's not 'dsl lowram' just 'lowram'. That code disables most things to preserve memory so that might be worth a try? Good luck
Chris
Posted by Soambah on May 09 2006,16:28
Thanks Chris, Been there done that. Also tried "failsafe". Same result. The last hardware mod I can do is to dump four 32 meg SIMMs of EDO into it. That's the fastest SIMM RAM I have. The 440HX chipset will support up to 512 megs of EDO. Now if somebody would like to "lend" me four 64 meg EDO SIMMs I could give it 256 megs:-) From what I've read DSL should be more than happy with the 64 megs it already has, but it's all I have left to try. It would be depressing to learn that DSL is more picky about RAM than Win2k which runs great on 64 megs of fast page RAM. Now, the idea of patenting this box as a "Linux Resistant PC" is starting to look better & better - I bet Billy would be really interested - eh? LOL
Posted by kerry on May 09 2006,17:41
A pantent,hmm. I have a hp ominbook xe2 that won't read .exe so it won't install any windows programs. 
Posted by Soambah on May 10 2006,01:05
Update - I tried the 128 megs of EDO and.....(drum roll) - same old same old. Well I'm all out of ideas. Could it be that somehow there never was support for the 440HX chipset with a Pentium "classic" and SIMM Ram? Anybody??
Posted by skaos on May 10 2006,10:24
Maybe you could try the following BSD based live CD: < http://www.freesbie.org/ >Another possibility is that there is a bad contact somewhere - try to take out every component (cpu, ram, cables ...) and reseat them. And maybe you could try to underclock the system with a FSB of 60 MHz?