Noob to Linux trying to boot DSL

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Noob to Linux trying to boot DSL
started by: mall

Posted by mall on Sep. 01 2005,19:33

Wishing you all a good 'whatever time of day it is at your place'

DSL1.4 on cd will not start to boot in a 166mhz 32mb ram 4gb hdd machine. I bought the cd from a local online auction service and it starts to boot ok in my larger Windows 98 machine. I wonder what is wrong in the smaller machine?

The bios on the 166mhz machine, under "Disk Drive Control" reads:

Diskette Drive ..........Normal
HDD........................Normal
System Boot Drive.....Drive A then C (changeable to either A, C, C then A)
Boot from CD rom.....Enabled

Any ideas?

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Sep. 01 2005,19:59

Perhaps the older PC does not like the isolinux version?

Have you tried using the boot floppy? or even the syslinux iso?

-J.P.

Posted by mall on Sep. 01 2005,20:14

Thanks Saidin. Any links to advice on how to make a boot floopy? I will need to google "syslinux iso" as I do not know what this is.

Posted by cbagger01 on Sep. 02 2005,21:10

Check out the DSL WIKI for help:

< http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Boot_Floppies >

Posted by mall on Sep. 03 2005,23:34

Thank you very much for the reference in the Wiki cbagger.

Thanks to that, I have now managed to start a Poorman's install, but during the install get a message:

"You passed an undefined mode number. Press <return> to see video modes available or <space> to continue".

I pressed <return> and tried a number of the modes but always get a 'pretty pattern' so to speak. 狢 also used the option to scan and get the same pattern.

Any more leads?

PS. Also get the same pattern when press <space>.