Frugal install problems on Toshiba Libretto 50ct

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Frugal install problems on Toshiba Libretto 50ct
started by: labratgreg

Posted by labratgreg on Oct. 06 2005,16:42

(note: I have cross-posted the same message to the HD-install forum in the hopes of getting diverse help)

Okay here's what I have done so far to try to get DSL working on my Toshiba Libretto 50ct:

(pentium 75, 16mb ram, no floppy, no cd, no usb, pcmcia is the only interface and isn't bootable unless you use a PCMCIA floppy which I don't have...I have a 512mb CF card and PC-card adapter but it can't boot from it)

1) remove drive from libretto, put into toshiba portege 7010 laptop (pII-500, 96mb ram, with a CD rom and floppy on the docking station).

2) basic frugal install, following these directions:

< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=8732 >

(I also consulted < http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=8762 > but it didn't help any)

3) had to use the following cheatcodes in the grub command line to get it to run on the laptop, which for some reason freezes in USB detection every time: nousb, vga=788

4) all worked great on the laptop; then put back into the libretto

4.5) (put it back in the laptop, modify grub menu.lst to take out the "toram" tag)

5) after I make my selection in grub, when it is booting the kernel, it goes nuts:

after "creating direcotries and symlinks on ramdisk" then I get

"unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address e7e9b243" followed by lots of junk then "segmentation fault". This happens a couple of times then I get

"done.
Starting init process.
<6>Freeing unused kernel memory: 140k freed
INIT: version 2.78-knoppix booting
INIT: No inittab file found

Enter runlevel:"

and no matter what I put in I get

"INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel"

6) if I use the "e" command in grub and edit my boot parameters, I can take out the "noapm noacpi nodma noscsi" leaving in only "nousb" and "frugal" then I get (after the same segmentation fault errors)

<6>Freeing unused kernel memory: 140k freed
INIT: version 2.78-knoppix booting
INIT: cannot execute "/etc/init.d/rcS"
INIT: Entering runlevel: 5
INIT: cannot execute "/etc/init.d/rc"

and it gives me a bash prompt.

This is as far as I was able to get on it in one day. Any suggestions what I am doing wrong? I know that the low amount of memory must make some difference. And maybe the small LCD?

The Libretto has the following screen parameters, maybe I don't know how to set the framebuffer settings right for this?
640x480 x 16M <- standard display resolution
800x600 x 65K
1024x768 x 256
1280x1024i x 16

Any help would be great! (note: I could buy a floppy for it from ebay for ~10 bucks, but increasing the memory to 32mb--the max it can take--would cost over 80 bucks for one 16mb ram chip!)

Posted by Your Fuzzy God on Oct. 06 2005,22:49

16Mb of RAM is not nearly enough to run DSL in ramspace. Take toram out of the startup options.

Posted by andrewb on Oct. 06 2005,23:10

So far as getting the screen to work see:

< http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Vga%3Dxxx >

Posted by labratgreg on Oct. 07 2005,02:55

Quote (Your Fuzzy God @ Oct. 06 2005,18:49)

16Mb of RAM is not nearly enough to run DSL in ramspace. Take toram out of the startup options.

yeah, i got that (if you will notice #4.5 in my original writeup). Confused me at first, but then when I realized the problem it was easy to correct.