Another newbie to DSL & Linux

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Another newbie to DSL & Linux
started by: daklander

Posted by daklander on Nov. 15 2004,05:08

Hi guys,
I gotta tell you, this DSL is just what I've been looking for.
The intention is to have it as the OS on a music player computer hooked to a stereo in my garage.
I have an old Packard Bell Multimedia 730 with a Cyrix266 in it. The thing came with 40mb of RAM and it's proprietay and really expensive so I stuck some other ram in there. It only reads the first 32mb so I'm at 64mb and that seems to be enough. The live cd runs fine, speedwise so I found the install and had a go at it.
This box has two small hard drives. The main drive, hda1 is at about 3gig and is running Windows ME. The second drive, hdb1 is the drive I installed DSL on and when Lilo came up I had it set to the hda1 MBR. Everything seemed to go as it was supposed to but upon reboot it just goes right into windows. When checking the drives from windows it shows only about 28mb of space taken on hdb1. Is that right? Does it make a difference if the file format is ntfs on hda1? I think it FAT32 but I won't be able to check until tomorrow. The drive hdb1 was FAT32 and still shows up so apparently DSL loads on a FAT partition? Or, is that the problem? I didn't see a format/partition feature anywhere, is there one? On a HD install should I set up a swap partition on the second HD? I had the live boot place a swap on the hda1 drive, maybe I should just leave it there?
Now, once I get this up and running what is my procedure for getting the AirLink wireless pci adapter (AWLH3025, 802.11g) recognized and funtioning? I didn't see anything about the Airlink during my searches, might have missed it...
At this point I'm not concerned with printers, or any other peripherals because of the intended use. If there's a way to remove the items I don't need, will it make the OS even quicker?
As I said, I'm running Windows ME now and it runs pretty well on the computer, probably because I've stripped it as lean as I know how, but I think if I can get this DSL up and running right I'll be really happy and have a faster, more stable computer with less chance of virus infections. As mentioned, I'll be streaming through the computer to a stereo receiver amp.
Any and all ideas, help or points to the right information will be greatly appreciated.

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 15 2004,20:21

Quote (daklander @ Nov. 15 2004,00:08)

NTFS on ME?? HOW?

?? I dont think it is ntfs bud, ME cant read that type of file partition.
It might not be proprietary ram, some older edo ram is classified as 4k refresh ram (you have to have the intel tx chipset for it to use 2k refresh EDO properly, otherwise it only sees 1/2 of the available ram present)

< Is this your card? >
< Drivers >
You may have to use Ndiswrapper to get working

Quote

manufacturer's drivers are at: ťwww.airlinkplus.com/driver/wireless_do..

searching the web I found Xterasys ( ťwww.xterasys.com/xn2522g.htm ) sells the same card as the XN-2522G but turns out the drivers on their website are the same March 2004 version.

But I think I may just now have solved my problem. By googling TI wireless g, I stumbled accross a press release indicating that USRobotics cards used the TI chipset, so I went digging on their website and found this driver file "
USR11g_v6.0b14.exe" on the support page for the USR5416 card ( < http://www.usr.com/support/product-template.a.. > ). I ran the excecutable, and then forced a driver change so that my card is now a "US Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo Adapter", using driver USR11G.sys, ver 6.0.1.6 dated 6/28/2004. And amazingly -- it works -- DHCP worked first time. I even cycled my router and computer a couple of times to make sure it wasn't a fluke, and each time it reacquired an address automatically. Looks like problem solved. What would be really interesting to find out is whether my lowly Airlink card can actually handle the 125 MBps mode that the driver supports... I don't have a router to check that with.

The guys says it uses the same chipset as the US Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo Adapter and that led to < HERE > for linux drivers

Their .dep package is < HERE >

Good luck bud!!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by daklander on Nov. 16 2004,01:59

Thanks Brian.
No, it's not NTFS, it's FAT32. I've had too many hds with too many partition types to remember which that one was but it is FAT 32.
Still now luck with getting DSL to see the card. I tried setup through the system menu but still no luck. I'm not sure what the SIS is they are looking for and when checking the setup through windows there is no WEP turned on so I left that blank.

No luck yet with the hd install either. I tried that hard drive utilities image and it won't load because the Lilo is trying to load DSL when I hit some of the hard drive utilities. I gotta find and get rid of that first. These drive are Conners.

As to the RAM, it is proprietary according to everything I've been able to find on that Packard Bell computer and at over a hundred bucks a stick the computer isn't worth it. I could take that hundred and throw another eighty bucks at it and get a new box. I got this thing several years ago from a thrift store for ten bucks and for the use I plan for it I won't spend any more money. The box just isn't worth it.

Anyway, thanks for the links, I'll keep working on this cause I still think this distro is just what the doctor ordered for the use I need on this old slug.