Thinkpad 560, Loadlin, Java?

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Thinkpad 560, Loadlin, Java?
started by: richpearl

Posted by richpearl on Jan. 05 2006,01:01

Sharing a Thinkpad 560x that has no CD. It's a Mobile Pentium 233mhz, 64MB RAM, 4G HD with 2 partitions. The needs from this machine are basic -- portability, internet access w/ java, and word processing. The other user is a Windozer. Laptop has Win95, runs Office97 and Firefox 1.05, has a firewall and current AV, as well as a collection of suitable apps for upkeep. It's a solid setup, relatively secure, stable, though occasionally slow, and going nowhere. This is as good as this machine can get in Windows. .

I'm a relative newcomer to Linux. Last year while looking into a Knoppix CD, I discovered DSL. On a fast pc, with 512MB, it was impressive. Now I want to see how it does on this old beast.

Using a Netgear MA-401, I downloaded and installed Isobuster, then grabbed the 2.0 image and pulled the /Knoppix and /boot directories. I'm not in a position to reformat, and I'm not sure about using partition software on a HD that's had the same setup for 8-9 years, so I wrote a basic options.txt file and used Loadlin to boot DSL 2.0

As you can tell, I'm online. Kudo's to the team here. Now for the questions:

I've dl'd and placed in the /Optional directory the Abiword and Java extensions. The MYDSL app recognizes both, but only Abiword installs. Trying the Java hangs the machine and I have to do a manual shutdown and reboot. Using Emelfm, I get the error message that there wasn't enough disk space. I assume this is because the initial script is loading everything into memory, and I don't have enough RAM. The addition of a Dos swapfile didn't help.

Is there a way to make MyDSL use the hard drive? Must the Ramdisk be unmounted first? If so, how do I do that?

I noticed the first partition is mounted to /cdrom and is unwriteable. Is this part of the problem?

Running java is a requisite need for my work. If I can't load Java in Linux, I'll have to stick to Windows.

I've perused and searched the forums, wiki, faqs, and googled the net, but as a relative Linux newcomer, I'm not sure what questions I should be seeking answers to.

Can anyone offer some suggestions?

Do I need to clarify more? I'll be glad to.

thanks!!

rich pearl

Posted by Max on Jan. 05 2006,03:06

I've got one of these 560x's. I use it to serve up mp3's to my stereo from a remote server running edna.py.

Since you don't want to muck with the current drive, trying sticking a compact flash memory card (with adapter of course) in the second pcmcia slot. Then put the jre1_5_0.uci on there and load that instead of the .dsl version. uci's work like mounted drives so they don't load the app into memory.

Since you will only be reading from the memory card, you won't burn it out. You could stick all of your MYDSL files on there to if you wanted. And since you sharing the PC, you can take it with you when you go.

There are other (more complicated) options, but this seems the easiest off the top of my head.

Just a thought...

Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 05 2006,18:44

I may be stating the obvious, but the Java 1.5 JRE UCI extension (uses less RAM than the other one) is available in the UCI section of the MyDSL repository.

Posted by richpearl on Jan. 06 2006,15:28

thanks, Max! nice suggestion. dl'd the Java UCI extension to the second partition. mounted it and ran the app via Firefox. unfortunately, it appears that my 64MB RAM is insufficient. app took up whole screen and ran slower than a snail in hibernation.

oh, well!

hi, cbagger!

thanks, both of you, for taking the time to respond.

best to all!

rich

Posted by doobit on Jan. 06 2006,15:35

I'm using a 233mhz laptop with 64MB RAM and I put the java uci in the same directory as the frugal install of DSL. It loads when I boot. When a Java app calls for it, then it runs. Yes it takes a while, but it works.