Booting DSL on ZF Micro ZFx86 Chip

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Booting DSL on ZF Micro ZFx86 Chip
started by: nmx

Posted by nmx on Aug. 17 2005,16:01

I've used DSL before and I love it, but I'm trying to get it to boot now on a ZF Micro "PC on a chip." It's an IA32 compatible 100MHz chip, and so far the only distro I've been able to get running is iTuner Minibox, but it's a little lacking and I'd prefer to get DSL working. I've tried Debian, Fedora and Slackware and none of them will boot, generally having similar problems.

When I boot up from CD, if I just run dsl with no options, it loads two compressed images (the kernel and initrd I would guess), and I get a blank screen immediately after. If I try it in text mode (dsl 2) it does the same thing. If I try "lowram" I get a blank screen with a cursor blinking.

Any ideas on what the problem could be?

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Aug. 17 2005,16:32

How much ram does this machine have?

Have you tried the "minimal" or "failsafe" cheatcodes?

Not familiar with zf micro systems, so a full specs list would be nice too.

-J.P.

Posted by nmx on Aug. 17 2005,17:10

Thanks for the reply. I tried the minimal option and still got a blank screen. If I try "failsafe" it shows:

Loading linux24...........
Loading minirt24.gz......
Ready.

And a blinking cursor underneath that. That's also exactly what I get when I try to install Debian or Slackware.

Here's a link to the specs for the chip:
< ZFx86 Specifications >

Our system has 64MB RAM.