Beaver & SIAG not working properly

Forum: Apps
Topic: Beaver & SIAG not working properly
started by: Steve_2

Posted by Steve_2 on Oct. 06 2006,03:30

I'm a newbie to Linux AND DSL so be gentle. I know NOTHING!
Here we go...A friend that is familliar with Linux helped me do a HD install of DSL on an old ThinkPad 365ED (500mb HD). We got the modem card to dial Earthlink and used Dillo to hit some web sites. Firefox didn't want to work, I suspect a low RAM issue (24mb).
Now to my bigger problems...When opening a new document in Beaver, all the tool buttons highlighted as I ran across them with the mouse and showed the tool tips. When I went to type a test doc, nothing printed on the document. Almost as though the keyboard was rendered useless.
In SIAG, a different issue. Tool buttons seemed to work fine until I inserted some numbers in the cells, but when I went to use any of the tool buttons, they didn't work. Not even highlighted.
Is there something I'm missing, setting changes, or is this a laptop issue?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Posted by mikshaw on Oct. 06 2006,03:49

I suspect a low RAM issue (24mb)

With that amount of memory, you'd be much better using vi or nano to edit text. I'm not saying that's your only trouble, but if you consider over half of your ram is already used just loading DSL with a graphical environment, you don't have much left to work with.

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Oct. 06 2006,20:10

Maybe booting with lowram (among others) could help you out a bit. Firefox is pushing it, but Beaver should be fine.

Posted by u2musicmike on Oct. 06 2006,20:37

Adding a swap partition helps with low ram situations.

Posted by Steve_2 on Oct. 08 2006,22:19

u2,
Swap partition was made during installation. I'm not sure how big it is, this is harder to find things in than WinXP. :angry:

mikshaw,
Is there a way to use some of the HD as RAM? I have alot left over after the install. No other applications than the ones that came with the DSL package.

Firefox makes my HD just keep cranking like it has a mind of it's own. I had to power down after 5 minutes of it not doing anything. You would think there would be an error message or something.

I have been able to get to some sites using Dillo, but ckicking on a 2nd or 3rd page makes the system freeze up solid. Another RAM issue I suspect.
Oh well, the main reason for trying to get this going in the first place is to have correspondence capibilities on trips, not for surfing.
I need to get the email program working now. Won't THAT be fun!

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Oct. 08 2006,22:51

Swap refers to using a resource such as your hd as virtual memory.

I'd still recommend for you to use "lowram" bootcode if you haven't yet.

Using firefox is a bit of an overkill... once you get dillo working alright, you should try Opera instead.

I think an email program called Sylpheed is included.

Posted by u2musicmike on Oct. 08 2006,22:55

First does the "Swap Used" show anything on the upper right of your screen?

If not this is how I would find my swap partition:

Boot DSL 2 or you might right click on the Atermial icon and do superuser

type fdisk /dev/hda <- yours could be sda, hdb etc..

hit p

if swap is there it should be type 82

note what it is if it's there ~ hda2 or hda1

hit q

type swapon /dev/hda2 <- for whatever you find

Posted by Steve_2 on Oct. 09 2006,02:09

I remember the guy that helped me set this up used type 82 but I don't remember if it was on 1 or 2.
But I have been watching the commands fly by during startup and also noticed that swap was being used or at least recognised.
It did however just stop the boot sequence. I have the following notice...

"xauth: error in locking authority file /home/dsl/.Xauthority
xauth: error in locking authority file /home/dsl/.Xauthority
xauth: error in locking authority file /home/dsl/.Xauthority
xauth: error in locking authority file /home/dsl/.Xauthority

giving up.
xinit : Connection rerfused (errno 111): unable to connect to X server
xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error.
xauth: error in locking authority file /home/dsl/.Xauthority
dsl@console[dsl]$"

I don't know squat about what is going on now, but it can't be good.
I was on a web site earlier that froze this up. I couldn't do anything with it so I turned it off.
Could it still be looking for the web connection?
Should this conversation be moved to another topic?

Posted by Trog Dog on Oct. 10 2006,12:02

G'day Steve

This is happening because you didn't shutdown properly. At the dsl@console prompt type

Code Sample

sudo su
fsck

This will start the file system tools like scandisk in windows, follow the prompts (if any) and then type

Code Sample

reboot

DSL should now boot properly.