DSL 4.1 frugal install problems on Libretto 100

Forum: Laptops
Topic: DSL 4.1 frugal install problems on Libretto 100
started by: dslrgm

Posted by dslrgm on Dec. 19 2007,19:57

I installed DSL 4.1 frugal on my hd by putting the drive in another system, doing the option 4 install from liveCD, included a format of hda1, then moved the hd to my Libretto.

WIth DSL 3.4, I used vga=808; this worked just right.

So in the Frugal install, I supplied that option and everything seemed to work ok for the install. But I have some major problems with the system....

in the /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst file the parameter is vga=normal not vga=808!

The screen comes up a weird green and unreadable. I cannot find how to get a terminal session going so I can sudu -s and run vi to edit the grub menu.lst file (as I did with DSL 3.4). I was hoping that at least a terminal window would be readable. I cannot find a nice icon for terminal as we had in 3.4, nor can I find it in the mouse right-click pull down menu (but then again, I can hardly read it!).

I tried booting from floppy as dsl 2; but I did not have write permissions to the menu.lst file, even though I was root? Looks like everything is loaded as a read-only system?

Posted by john.martzouco on Dec. 19 2007,20:05

Try Ctrl+Alt+Backspace when you're running in the desktop. When I do this with a traditional HD install 4.1 and the Fluxbox desktop, it shuts down X and takes me to console. I'm new at this so there may be variations based on install and window manager.

Posted by dslrgm on Dec. 19 2007,20:18

Quote (john.martzouco @ Dec. 19 2007,15:05)

Oh, you should see the disaster of screen after that <cntl-alt-bksp>!!!

It is flashing dark blue then light blue. WIth a some unreadable characters on most lines.

I can tell I am in a text mode. I can see changes when I type:

cd /cdrom
cd boot
cd grub

but vi menu <tab> <return> does not result in a readable screen.

I need a different solution.....

Posted by john.martzouco on Dec. 19 2007,20:49

One of my laptops needs to start up in frame-buffer mode. Otherwise the screen gets bleached white... hyper-saturated.

There is a bootup option dsl xsetup This worked for me and it only offered the choice between xvesa and xfbdev on that machine. Choose xfbdev for frame-buffering.

Posted by dslrgm on Dec. 19 2007,21:16

no dsl xsetup option that I saw....

But I forgot that with grub you can edit the boot line. Which I tried, but it did not seem to really allow me to edit it.

I tried to change vga=normal to vga=808

When I <esc>, it showed still vga=normal

When I b (booted), there were both options. with vga=808 last.

So the screen came up this useless green. I did figure out how to get terminal running, and get into vi, but I could not read the text to know what I was editing!

I assume there is some commands here....

Oh, and with DSL 3.4, I don't believe I used the frame-buffer mode, but what do I remember? Poor notes.

Posted by john.martzouco on Dec. 19 2007,21:34

Whoops, yeah, that dsl xsetup is shown on the F2 option page when booting up from the live CD. But it does open the door to setting Xfbdev in the .xserverrc file.

Posted by dslrgm on Dec. 19 2007,22:14

Except I cannot boot from the liveCD without going through the pain(again) of pulling the hd from my laptop and putting it into another machine.

Only floppy boot. I guess I can try that...

Posted by dslrgm on Dec. 19 2007,22:42

PROGRESS!!!

floppy boot and the dsl xsetup

Chose buffered and now the screen is readable.

So I opened a terminal window,

sudo -s

cd /cdrom/boot/grub

vi menu.lst

Hey, I am told this is a readonly file?

A ls -ls shows permissions of 664 (rw-rw-r--).

So how do I edit this?

Then I went to backup to my hda3. Invalid device.

df -h does not show hda3.

One of my boot options is home=hda3

What happened to my hda3? cfdisk shows it. My partitions are:

hda1 Boot Primary Linux ext2 255.99
hda2 Primary Linux swap 255.99
hda3 Primary Linux ext3 3583.78

Posted by john.martzouco on Dec. 19 2007,23:31

It's 664, so it should be writable. Try this, it works in DSL:

[open terminal window]
sudo beaver /boot/grub/menu.lst &

Maybe that should be /cdrom/boot... but for my HD install the above is correct.

Posted by dslrgm on Dec. 20 2007,00:44

Making headway!

The problem writing of the /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst file was caused by the boot from floppy and then loading from hda1, instead of just booting from hda1.

The boot from floppy (dsl xsetup) allowed me to acutally see the screen and thus the menu choices. The xsetup did not 'stick'. But I rebooted, got the ugly screen but was able to start a terminal window as root and put in the vga=808.

A reboot got me a decently sized screen. It is mostly grey and poor res. I have to get the xfbdev to 'stick'. Running it from the terminal window does not seem to make any changes.

I am now getting my hda3 as my home partition. Seems before the problem was the floppy boot.

So I am at the 'fix the desktop' stage. The desktop is the open mottle grey. The system status stuff in the upper left is unreadable. No icons on the desktop. I cannot deduce what the deskto menu via right-click does. Perhaps the wiki supplies some info..

Posted by andrewb on Dec. 20 2007,02:23

You should be editing the file in /boot/grub/ NOT the one in /cdrom/boot/grub. I'm not sure why you have a /cdrom directory with files in it. That is where the cdrom would be mounted when you boot from a cdrom.

You could edit menu.lst on the machine you used to transfer DSL to the hard drive. All you need to do is boot from the cd again, mount the hard drive & navigate to /mnt/hda<n>/boot/grub (where <n> is the partition number).

Did you save a backup when you loaded DSL to the hard drive on the other machine. Try booting on the Libretto with 'DSL vga=808 norestore xsetup', choose xfbdev in xsetup.

I haven't tried 4.1 or 4.2, but 4.0 works OK on my L100. I will try & find the time to load up 4.2 at the weekend. I do however use a different upgrade route as I have 3.4.x & 4.x both on the L100. 3.4.x resides on a native Linux partition, but 4.x is stored on the Win98 partition so all I do is copy over the new knoppix file & upgrade the kernek files stored in /boot when necessary.

Posted by john.martzouco on Dec. 20 2007,11:38

The settings for X are stored in an rc file in each user's home directory. You could manually change to xfbdev... maybe you could even execute the command from a login shell and see what happens first. My .xserverrc looks like this:

Code Sample

exec /usr/bin/X11/Xfbdev -2button -mouse /dev/psaux -nolisten tcp -I &>/dev/null

Posted by dslrgm on Dec. 20 2007,11:38

A Frugual install to disk does NOT use /boot/ for loading the system. This is really /Knoppix/boot/. btw.

My 'proof' is I supplied a host=libretto parameter at install time, and I can see that this is my host name. This parameter is NOT in /boot/grub/menu.lst, but is in /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst

Also the former has noacpi and the later acpi. dmesg shows acpi on.

How can I tell if xfbdev is being used? There are cheatcodes for it, but they are for specific resolutions, not the one needed for the Libretto.

4.2 is out? After all that work to get 4.1 installed ?

bTW, my hd in my Libretto is a Hitachi 4Gb microharddrive in a CF-2.5"IDE adapter. Completely quite and greatly enhanced battery life! But it would be nice to be able to read the desktop, and see what the battery status is....

So how do I tell if xfbdev is being used?

Posted by john.martzouco on Dec. 20 2007,11:44

Wow... our messages were posted at exactly the same time. You can tell if you're using xfbdev by reading the contents of each user's ~/.xserverrc file.

Posted by dslrgm on Dec. 20 2007,12:29

Quote (john.martzouco @ Dec. 20 2007,06:38)

Code Sample

exec /usr/bin/X11/Xfbdev -2button -mouse /dev/psaux -nolisten tcp -I &>/dev/null

OK. Mine is the same, minus the -2button. What is that for? My Libretto;'s mouse is 2 buttons on the back of the monitor with the equiv of the eraser-head control on the front of the monitor....

Well, looks like my desktop readablity problemwas no desktop background. I am playing around with the desktop config, and by setting the background (to any of the 4 provided), I now have a good, readable desktop and all the status stuff up in the rigth is readable.

Now to figure out where the icons went to.

Then I can get down to business again. Like figuring out how to remote to a GNOME-based server and have the gnome desktop, not just X (I have this working via VNC from a Gnome-based notebook)....

Posted by john.martzouco on Dec. 20 2007,14:25

You need the -2button if you want to copy/paste the Linux way. When you have highlighted text in a console window, if you click both mouse buttons at the same time, it will paste the highlighted text wherever your active cursor is currently pointing (e.g. the console itself, or your email message in Firefox, or in the beaver window). It's a great way to copy/paste.

Posted by dslrgm on Dec. 20 2007,14:25

Looks like my deskto problems are centered around old config stuff saved for my persistent dsl user on hda3. A boot without out the home= and with norestore brought up the desktop properly. So since I have to install DSL 4.2.1 shortly (might as well restart with the current), I am reformating my hda3 and then will reinstall...

RIght after my department status meeting conference call; nice benny of working from home, you can multitask without guilt!

Posted by andrewb on Dec. 20 2007,23:39

Quote (dslrgm @ Dec. 19 2007,20:38)

A Frugual install to disk does NOT use /boot/ for loading the system. This is really /Knoppix/boot/. btw.

ONce grub is installed it does use /boot/grub on the partition that you instructed grub to install itself to. I checked overnight & the directory cdrom is where the KNOPPIX file is mounted. This is mounted read-only, hence why you can't (& wouldn't) want to edit it.

I have my Libretto set up with:

hda1 = Win98 FAT
hda2 = DSL3.x - Native Linux
hda3 = Swap
hda4 = Linux Native - used for persistent home & backup location for non-home files that are backed up

I have grub installed to use files in /boot/grub on hda2 - this can be specified when installing grub. I have DSL4RC1 (soon to be DSL4.2) loaded onto the windows partition. All that is needed is to copy the boot & knoppix directories from the CDROM (I use a usb stick to do this, or via the network using any of the OS's on the machine). I then edit the menu.lst file stored in /boot/grub on hda2 to boot DSL4 from the files stored on the windows partition, or DSl 3.x from the files on hda2.

I suspect you have not yet found the correct /boot directory, but it must be there somewhere or grub won't work!

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 20 2007,23:57

A frugal emulates the actual livecd, so /cdrom/boot is correct for frugals, but /KNOPPIX is not.

Posted by dslrgm on Dec. 21 2007,16:27

Quote (andrewb @ Dec. 20 2007,18:39)

Quote (dslrgm @ Dec. 19 2007,20:38)

A Frugual install to disk does NOT use /boot/ for loading the system. This is really /Knoppix/boot/. btw.

Not on my frugal install....

All the changes are in /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst and those are what get applied.

/boot/grub/menu.lst is just a base setup and is not actively being used.

How can I tell? By the menu that grub presents at boot time. That is the menu in /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst

So our different situations is very interesting. BTW, I checked back to some old postings of when I was first getting DSL 3.4 working on this Libretto, and the /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst was where I was told to make mods back then (jul '07 timeframe).