old laptop - new distro
Forum: Laptops
Topic: old laptop - new distro
started by: tonymoloney
Posted by tonymoloney on Dec. 08 2005,08:11
I am a complete newbie with Linux, but I've been in the computer business since 1960.I've just bought the latest live CD of DSL, ran it up on my XP machine where it ran fine and then tried it on my laptop and nothing happened (more about that in a minute)
My laptop is a KTX880 (which I got for free) with 72Mb RAM, 1.25Gb Hdd, Pentium1 processor and a Toshiba ATAPI bootable CD ROM. The CD and a floppy share the same port but are not hot-swappable. This lappie is currently running Win98SE, slowly, but without any problems.
When I tried to boot the live CD it just sat there for several minutes doing nothing, then apparently gave up and booted the Winows system instead.
Windows Explorer can see the CD without any problems
The lappie also has a Cirrus pnp sound card and a Xircom 10/100 NIC in the pcmcia slot. The only application on it is the Win98 OS.
Can anyone help, please?
Tony
Posted by sarah on Dec. 08 2005,10:47
Hi Tony, welcome :o)I am also new, but I was wondering whether because your laptop is an older one, you might need to try the syslinux version instead?
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Syslinux_or_Isolinux >
I thought I'd mention it, although there may well be another solution to your problem or another explanation.
Good luck!
Cheers and beers,
Sarah
Posted by AwPhuch on Dec. 08 2005,17:49
Might try the poormans install (copy the DSL stuff to your Windows drive) and use a boot floppyThen do a frugal install (if you want to run from HD)
Brian
AwPhuch
Posted by tonymoloney on Dec. 08 2005,23:09
Hi sarah and Brian. Thanks for the replies.I think I'll try the "poorman's" solution first. I've had a bit of experience with this approach as the first distro I tried on this laptop was the Mepis one and it did the same thing.
I tried copying the files and created a GRUB boot disk which I still have, but even then Mepis would not work. I thought it was a size thing, but maybe Mepis (and DSL) can't recognise my screen. After all, the first evidence you have of anything happening is some messages on the screen - which I have yet to see on the laptop.
I'll give it a go and tell you the result, but you might not see that for a while as I'm located on the West Coast of Australia and out of most people's time zone
Tony
Posted by sarah on Dec. 09 2005,12:51
AwPhuch: Or Tony could try that which is a far better idea... Tony: I guess I'm not most people then since I'm in rural WA ;o)
Actually I was wondering whether it was your intention to keep Windows?
Posted by tonymoloney on Dec. 10 2005,03:30
Sarah,You're sure like me - not most people, just special people. I used to live in the Pibara but now have moved to the big smoke.
OK. I've followed up the poorman's install and got to the stage where GRUB loded and gave me some options. Actually, it was the GRUB that I had set up to try the MEPIS distro and it was all ready to boot the MEPIS disk. However, it gave me the chance to edit that boot line or go to command mode. I went to command mode and tried to guess what I needed but to no avail.
I had already copied the CD over to the C: drive in Windows, staying at the root level so I tried to run from the /boot/isolinux but couldn't get the command right.
To answer your other question - No, I'm trying to get away from Windows. All I want to do on this system is run enough of Linux to let me run Audacity for multitrack recording and then transfer the file to my desktop via the ethernet link for burning to a CD.
Tony
11:30 am West Coast time
Posted by tonymoloney on Dec. 11 2005,22:59
Yeeeaaah!!!!I've got it working!
Following your advice, I did a poor man's install. Under Windows, I copied the contents of the live CD to C:
I then went to the WIKI and followed the instructions to make a boot floopy. I copied bootfloopy.img and rawwritewin-0.7.zip into a new folder and created the floppy from there.
Success!! with this boot floppy it booted first go - even gave me a choice of screen sizes, so I was able to settle for 800 x 600 which I new was good for this lappie.
It can even see my sound card although I haven't been able to test it yet.
Not sure if it can see my PCMCIA and the Xircom NIC, but I'm on my way.
A bit more testing and I'll be able to make the decision to install to the hard disk or not.
Thanks for the help
Tony
8:00 am West Coast time.
Posted by AwPhuch on Dec. 12 2005,03:26
courtesy of monkeymind
Brian
AwPhuch