HOW-TO: Dell Latitude XPi CDForum: HD Install Topic: HOW-TO: Dell Latitude XPi CD started by: BarkingOwl Posted by BarkingOwl on Dec. 01 2005,19:51
These instructions detail how I installed DSL 2.0 on my Dell Latitude XPi CD M166ST. It took me a few failed attempts and numerous searches through incomplete and outdated information to get to a working installation. I hope this post will save someone some time and aggravation.Some information in this post originated from: -- < Installation Wiki > -- < Installation Notes > FYI, here are the basic specs of my laptop: -- 166MHz -- 2GB Hard drive -- 80MB RAM -- CD-ROM drive (not bootable) -- 3.5” Floppy drive -- It is standalone (NOT connected to a network) Here are the steps I used to install DSL on my laptop: 1. Download and burn current.iso to CD. 2. Download and write bootfloppy.img to floppy. 3. Boot the machine using the boot floppy and CD. At the boot: prompt, type: dsl vga=788 Later in the boot process, you will prompted for a number of selections to make. -- For the X server, select the Xfbdev xserver -- For the USB mouse, select no -- For the IMPS/2 mouse, select no -- For the mouse port, select ps2 port -- For the mouse buttons, select 2 buttons -- For the keyboard layout, select us You should now be in an Xwindow session running Fluxbox. 4. Partition the hard drive. NOTE: This assumes you want to wipe out any existing data on your hard drive! Open up a “Root Access” terminal window and type: cfdisk /dev/hda Delete all existing partitions and create two new partitions: -- hda1 -- Linux Swap (type 82), Size = 128MB -- hda2 -- Linux (type 83), Size = the rest of the disk space (about 2GB) Note that I did not double my RAM for my swap space size. Just a personal choice. 5. Reboot the machine, again with the DSL floppy disk and CD (and floppy, if necessary). 6. Activate the swap partition. Open up a “Root Access” terminal window and type: mkswap /dev/hda1 swapon /dev/hda1 7. Execute the DSL install script. In the “Root Access” terminal window, type: dsl-hdinstall The script will prompt you for a number of selections. -- For the install partitions, enter hda2 -- For install type, enter s (for standard install) -- For multi-user logins, enter n (this will give you two accounts: root and dsl) -- For whether to use ext3, enter n -- Continue? Enter y -- After the installation is complete, you will be prompted to run mkliloboot -- enter y -- When LILO is installed, you will be prompted to reboot -- enter y -- When the system is ready to reboot, it will prompt you to remove the CD. Remove both the CD and the floppy. 8. When the system reboots, you will be prompted to enter passwords for the root and dsl accounts (unless you elected to create multi-user logins above). You’re done! Enjoy your Damn Small laptop. If any of these steps requires more detail, let me know and I’ll update the post. Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 03 2005,04:32
THank you for the very well written explanation.
Posted by BarkingOwl on Dec. 08 2005,17:16
My pleasure. I use a number of Linux distributions and try to give back to the community what I can. I'm not a Linux (or programming) guru, so my contributions are usually limited to some basic documentation.Also, as an addendum to the first post: I do NOT have an external mouse connected to the laptop. I just use the built-in trackball (which works very well). Anyone using these instructions with an EXTERNAL mouse, let me know if the steps work as posted. Cheers! Posted by sarah on Dec. 11 2005,09:23
Does anyone (in particular you as the author BarkingOwl) mind if this gets added to the Wiki somewhere? I don't mind doing it, but thought I'd wait a couple of days in case there's any objections. Thank you for taking the time to write this up, because I'm sure that it will help others with machines of similar specs :o) I think I would have found it useful when I was doing battle ;o) Cheers and beers Sarah Posted by BarkingOwl on Dec. 12 2005,17:22
Sarah,By all means, please post to the Wiki (with any changes/updates you deem necessary). Great idea! Cheers! Posted by Da Vince on Dec. 12 2005,20:02
BarkingOwl thanks, it works well,only I got no music out of the Dell Latitude XPi CD. the soundcard is not working. Is it the same on your laptop? Posted by BarkingOwl on Dec. 12 2005,21:20
Da Vince,I don't know if I have that problem (yet). The sound board in my laptop was bad to begin with. However, I managed to find another XPi for free (bad screen, no battery, no HD) and I am going to attempt to swap out the sound card and see if I can get it working. Fingers crossed, if I get it installed I'll post any additional steps to get it working in DSL. Cheers! Posted by BarkingOwl on Dec. 14 2005,16:16
Update on my efforts to get the sound to work.I got the sound board swapped out without too much of a headache. I tried the sound configuration steps from < this thread >, but did not have any success. You may want to try it out and see if you can get it to work. Note that the sound card in my laptop is an ESS 1888 (you may have an 1887 or 1688). The sb (soundblaster) module is supposed to work with these boards. Didn't work for me. Next stop: < ALSA >. I will try installing the ALSA drivers and getting it to work that way (seems to have a good success rate). Cheers! Posted by Da Vince on Dec. 15 2005,12:39
No I did try it, without successI’m not giving up. It is a Dell Lat..XPi CD P150ST Audio controller:* Latitude XPi CD M166ST and Latitude XPi CD M133ST ESS 1887 ESS 690 wavetable music synthesizer ESS 938 3D audio spatializer (on systems using Windows 95) Latitude XPi CD P150ST ESS 1888 ESS 690 wavetable music synthesizer ESS 938 3D audio spatializer (on systems using Windows 95) Audio type SoundBlasterPro-compatible 3.01 voice and music functions Stereo 16-bit (analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion) FM music synthesizer 20-voice, 72-operator Interfaces internal ISA bus; external stereo line-in (minijack, stereo); external microphone-in (minijack, mono); external headphones/speakers-out (minijack, stereo) Speakers (4) 8-ohm speakers Internal speaker amplifier 1 W into 8 ohms mono Headphones amplifier 150 mW into 32 ohms stereo Controls volume can be controlled with key combinations, software applications menus, the Speaker window in the Dell Control Center, and the System Setup program * The device driver for ESS 1887 audio controller is compatible with the ESS 1888 audio controller. However, the device driver for the ESS 1888 audio controller is not compatible with the ESS 1887 audio controller. Posted by BarkingOwl on Dec. 19 2005,19:59
Grrrr... Beat my head over the weekend working on this. Genius that I am, I tried doing it the hard way. Tried downloading the ALSA source and compiling -- needed gcc, so went to get it installed... long story short, I put a bunch of crap on my system and never got the sound to work.Going to start over with a clean install and try doing it the easy way with the MyDSL extension for ALSA. See this < thread > for details. Also might want to read over the < Installing MyDSL Extensions > wiki. Cheers! Posted by dbennett on Feb. 23 2006,17:21
This doesn't work with a Dell Latitude CPt running NT 4.0 and formatted with NTFS. On the CPt you can boot dsl from the CD-ROM and use it in a limited manner. You cannot eject the CD-ROM or remove the CD-ROM cartridge. You cannot use fdisk because it cannot find /dev/hda despite System Stats showing a /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, /dev/hda3 which were all mountable. Very frustrating.
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