Toshiba Satellite 1555 need help

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Toshiba Satellite 1555 need help
started by: wiljen

Posted by wiljen on June 07 2005,15:47

Hello...

Right now I am runnunig SimplyMepis 3.3 on my old Toshiba Satellite 1555, but since I only have a 4Gb HD, I would like to try a smaller distro.

I tried an earlier version of DSL, but could never boot it except in failsafe. I saw a new version came out and thought maybe it work on this old machine.

Like the older version, it will boot in failsafe (however the usb mouse doen't work). While booting it gets to the line:

Init: Version 2.78-7 knoppix booting
Running Linux Kernel 2.4.6.
Processor 0 is AMD-K6™ 3D processor 380 MHz, 64 Kb Cache

...and then it just sits there doing nothing.

I have 160 Mb RAM

I have tried "dsl noagp noapm noapic nomce noddc"

I also have two pcmcia cards inserted...a netgear wireless and a sandisk CF memory.

Anyone here with helpful suggestions?

Thanks!

Posted by dbickin on June 07 2005,16:09

I have the same laptop. As I recall, when booting from the CD, I have to specify nopcmcia. However, I got around that by copying the CD image to the harddrive, then booting with SYSLINUX from a floppy. (Eventually I moved SYSLINUX onto the hard drive and got grub installed.)

I'd try launching with nopcmcia and see if you can boot with that. (Albeit without network or your CF.) Then try using SYSLINUX for the boot.

David

Posted by Guest on June 07 2005,16:12

I assume you can boot from the CD. Which ISO did you use: the isolinux or the syslinux? There are some cases where syslinux works better for old machines.

Posted by wiljen on June 07 2005,16:22

Thanks guys...

Yes I can boot from the CD (non-SYSLINUX) using nopcmcia...

but the reason I am using the old laptop is in my wireless lan
so i need to get the pcmcia to work.. any ideas?

Bill

Posted by Guest on June 07 2005,16:49

Using nopcmcia does not necessarily mean you cannot use pcmcia. It is just not loaded automatically. You may just need a couple of "modprobe" commands, as well as the proper method to set-up your wireless card (see other sections of this forum).

Posted by wiljen on June 07 2005,18:09

Quote (Guest @ June 07 2005,12:49)

Thanks....

I download the DSL-1.2-SYSLINUX iso and was able to boot ok with that.

However there are two issues I need help in resolving:

1) I can see my hard drive partions, but I cannot see any files on them so I cannot acccess the drives data;

2) My Netgear WG511T wireless card (ath0) is not one of the wireless cards recognized by DSL (I guess I need to use ndiswrapper and modprobe to get it to work?)

I am still running off the live cd but would like to install it to my CF card and just boot from the cd...is that possible?

Posted by Guest on June 07 2005,22:16

I can't help you with item number 2, but I think I can handle number 1.

When you said you can see your partitions, I assume you mean you see them inside /etc/fstab. So the next will be to check whether they are mounted. Open an XTerminal and type "mount". Do you see the partitions and their corresponding mountpoints? The should look something like "/dev/hda1 on /mnt/hda1 type vfat (rw)". If you don't see these, the partition is not mounted.

To mount the partition, use the dock app at the lower right side of your desktop. There are 4 or 5 of them that automatically load at boot-up. The one you need has an image of the floppy drive and has three buttons below it (a long button with zipper icon, and two arrow buttons). Use the arrow buttons to select the partition you want to mount, and use the zipper button to mount/unmount.

Once you are sure that the partitions are mounted, determine the permissions for the partition. Use the emelfm to go to the /mnt directory and examine the ownership, group membership, and the read/write/execute flags.

Posted by wiljen on June 08 2005,01:01

Quote (Guest @ June 07 2005,18:16)

Thanks...Irom your post, I realized that my screen resolution was too large because I could not see anything in the lower right hand corner of the desktop. Whaen I changed to a lower resolution, I could see the control panel and was able to mount and unmount with ease!!!
:laugh:

No if I could just get the wireless card to work, I'd be in business...(BTW I did try a d-link cabled card to the router, but couldn't get that to work either...)

is there a guide to walk someone thru setting this up/ The distro I am using now worked pretty well using smb4k

Posted by dbickin on June 08 2005,01:18

I had a problem getting my network card to work. Turned out that the internal modem and the network card were using the same IRQ. Solution was to disable the internal modem... won't work with linux anyway.

David

Posted by tempestuous on June 08 2005,03:20

When pcmcia services allocate an IRQ which conflicts with a serial device, there's a better solution - see my post < http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....nflicts >

Atheros-based cards are supported by the madwifi package, which I believe is already within DSL. The driver is ath_pci, I suggest you search these forums for more information ... or try here < http://madwifi.sourceforge.net/ >

It also appears that ndiswrapper should work for your adaptor.

Posted by wiljen on June 08 2005,04:13

Thanks for the suggestions, guys...

I had already disabled the modem in the Bios, so I don't think that is my problem. I will see if I can get the ndiswrapper/modprobe to work with the atheros drivers (tomorrow) and let you know how it goes

Great forum!