Frugal Install Issues

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Frugal Install Issues
started by: godfearerdsl

Posted by godfearerdsl on June 11 2006,13:09

I have been attempting to configure my computer to do the following using DSL:

1) Run FreeNX Server
2) Run Samba Server
3) Run Apache Server

My goal in this is to utilize this computer as my http server for internet web pages.

My computer is a Gateway P5-120 (120 MHz) with 48 MB RAM. I have a Fujitsu 3 GB hard drive partitioned with hda1 as 300 MB and hda2 as 2900 MB.

I have performed the Grub Frugal Hard Drive install based on this forum's user named clivesay found at < http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub....to.pdf. >

Currently, this computer does boot into DSL after editing the first grub command line to add "nopcmcia". (I am using the windows manager jwm).

It has seemed to me that once the basic install is complete, I should be ready to set up the servers I listed above. It appears to me that I need to either download some things from myDSL or by using apt-get.

When I go to TOOLS|ENABLE APT, I get a terminal window to pop up and it shows that dsl-dpkg.dsl is downloading from the internet. That download completes with an "OK" confirmation. Then, the next line states the following:

tar: var/lib/dpkg/info/base-files.lst: No space left on device
Updating apt-get
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/apt/lists/lock - open (28 no space left on device)
E: Unable to lock the list directory
Press Enter key to continue...

Being new, I am not positive, but it seems like this didn't go right. It appears that apt-get was not enabled. (a similar set of errors occurs when I attempt to utilize myDSL).

I have listed my topic in the Hard Drive install area because my first suspicion as to what is causing my problem is that something on the hard drive has not been set up properly. However, there could be other issues as well.

I am hoping you will be able to suggest something that will enlighten me. I have listed some of the things I have considered but hardly have the capacity to confirm:

1) hda2 was somehow not set up correctly. The DSL upper right corner displays system information. It currently shows:

Up: 0 k/s Down: 0 k/s
Processes: 23
CPU Usage: 0%

RAM Usage: 18.4M/44.7M - 41%

Swap Used: 0/0 %

File Systems:
/ 2.4M/3.0M
/home 24.3M/29.2M

I am surprised that there is no indication of the hard drive space I have available.

I didn't follow clivesay suggestion to set up a swap drive since I only had 48 MB RAM. Maybe I should have though. Can't tell.

2) Just don't have enough RAM to ever do anything more than just boot into DSL in Frugal mode.

3) I may not have the correct privileages while using DSL. During setup, I was never asked to offer a root password or a DSL user password. I currently don't know who I am logged in as.

Thanks for reading this post. You may be able to tell immediately that I am not going to be successful in achieving my goals of setting this computer us with the services listed above based on the hardware I have. I look forward to your comments.

Posted by mikshaw on June 11 2006,13:53

1) hda2 is not listed because it is probably not mounted. Unless hda2 is the location of your DSL installation, you will have to mount it in order to use it.

2) This is true....48mb is not really enough to use myDSL extensions (except uci/unc) or deb packages in a frugal system. If you do create a swap partition some of it will be used for /ramdisk, which will increase your chances of success.

3) There is no password in the typical setup. You will need to create your own either manually with the passwd command or wait for a prompt after booting with the "secure" boot option.

Posted by godfearerdsl on June 14 2006,17:14

Thanks to mikshaw for offering some ideas! His second thought, "...if you do create a swap partition some of it will be used for /ramdisk, which will increase your chances of success" convinced me I should go back to clivesay's instructions:

distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/pdfdocs/FrugalHowto.pdf

When I did that, I also discovered I had missed an important step by declaring opt=hda2 home=hda2 (I had not included that while going through the frugal install quetions). Thus, by including a swap partition and including the opt=hda2 and home=hda2 parameters, my machine booted with much better capabilities. Also, I utilized clivesay's suggestion of using lilo intead of grub.

Now my machine stat's look like this:

Up: 0 k/s Down: 0 k/s
Processes: 20
CPU Usage: 2%

RAM Usage: 16.0.4M/44.7M - 25%

Swap Used: 8k/705M %

File Systems:
/ 2.4M/3.0M
/home 1.87G/2.02G

This has allowed my to now load vnc, samba, and apache.

Thanks again for your help, mikshaw!