Gray Screen Freeze


Forum: Laptops
Topic: Gray Screen Freeze
started by: krbrock60

Posted by krbrock60 on Jan. 08 2005,02:36
Newbie here, trying to extend the useful life of an HP Omnibook 150Mhz, 32Meg Ram, 2 gig HD.  Updated the Bios but won't boot from CD so downloaded the floppy boot and coppied the files to a Knoppix directory on C:  Have booted up and will run through the auto detect of hardware but freezes on a gray screen with a bold x.  Tried entering "dsl xmodule=vesa" at the boot prompt and "dsl xmodule=vga" but still stops at the same blank screen.  Anyone have any ideas that will help get beyond this hang-up.  Thanks in adavance.
KB

Posted by panama on Jan. 08 2005,05:01
fb800x600 at boot always works for the correct video on my old laptop.

maybe look at the other boot options (F2?)

scour these forums. There is a TON of stuff in here...and many have successfully loaded DSL on these old laptops.

Good luck

Posted by krbrock60 on Jan. 08 2005,17:35
Thanks Panama. That got me to the desktop.  Now just need to get the Linksys PCMCIA wireless card working. I am "scouring" as we speak.
Thanks again,
KB

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Jan. 08 2005,21:21
if you have it in at boot, it should work right off the bat.

Unless its a prism3 chipset. Never seen one of those work.

Posted by krbrock on Jan. 15 2005,03:23
SaidinUnleashed,
It is a Linksys Wireless-B Model#WPC11 ver. 4.  Reading elsewhere I've learned that with the gold stripe over the pins means it is a cardbus not a PCMCIA eventhough that's where it goes.  Still trying to confirm the chipset.  Either way it is not recognized on boot.
KB

Posted by MASSRADIUS on Jan. 16 2005,23:01
Krbrock,

If you have any trouble with yours let me know...I got my Linksys wpc11 v4 wireless card working pretty easily.

Posted by lostcity on Jan. 17 2005,02:51
Linksys changed the internal workings of their adapters without much warning.  Some of the chipsets worked with linux and others don't.
Posted by krbrock60 on Feb. 05 2005,19:18
Quick update.  Used "cardctl ident" and received RealTek Rtl 8139.  Went to the RealTek website and found the linux drivers for the chip set. Downloaded and unzipped to a floppy.  Went back to the Omnibook and ran "sudo cp /mnt/floppy/8139too.c /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/"

Message back was "CP cannot create regular file '/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/8139too.c' :read only file system"

I tried copying the file using the file manager and no luck.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
KRB

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Feb. 05 2005,20:00
well, that is the source code for the driver not the driver itself.

you will need to compile it.

Posted by krbrock60 on Feb. 05 2005,22:31
OK, did some more reading.

Reviewing the Marcel Gagne book, tried the ./configure command and received a "no such file or directory" (I had changed to the /mnt/floppy directory).  Reviewed the the readme text again and it states that you can use the included "makefile" included with the package.  Ran that and recieved numerous errors:
:MAKEFILE LINE 9: RTL_MEM_ACCESS: command not found
: " LINE 15: NEW_INCLUDE_PATH: command not found
: " LINE 21: MODCFLAGS: command not found
: " LINE 25: all:: command not found
: " LINE 27: 8139too:: command not found
: " LINE 1: CC: command not found
: " LINE 1: MODCFLAGS: command not found
: " LINE 1: NEW_INCLUDE_PATH: command not found
: " LINE 28: -I: command not found

The documentation in the README file states to "remember to SPECIFY "NEW_INCLUDE_PATH" in Makefile according to your linux environment."  Just not sure what form that should take in the command. I will keep looking for more specific instructions on compiling the source code.  This is starting to remind me of my PASCAL days back in high school but it is a whole new world.
Thanks again for the help.
KRB

Posted by krbrock60 on Feb. 26 2005,12:53
OK, now I understand that DSL does't come with a compiler so need to download a different distro on a different machine that I assume would use the same kernel.  I did try to use ndiswrapper with the xp driver as suggested elsewhere but still no luck.  This card worked under win98 and the power light is on using dsl so I should be able to get this thing working.  MASSRADIUS, if you could provide some specific steps on what you did I would be forever in your debt.
Powered by Ikonboard 3.1.2a
Ikonboard © 2001 Jarvis Entertainment Group, Inc.