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Topic: Problems with installing/booting/everything, Old System desperately needs Linux

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bwever

Group: Members
Posts: 2
Joined: Jan. 2005

Posted: Jan. 05 2005,20:51

I came upon DSL a while back and love it. I have run it off the CD on my regular machine for weeks and think its great.

I am somewhat of a linux novice but know basic functions and how hardware is assigned like hda, hda1 and so on.

I would like to and have unsuccessfully tried to install it on an old Packard Bell 200 MMX machine with 50 megs of RAM.

For some reason the CD will not boot from the computer. so I figured I could boot from floppy and be okay, no luck. Then I took the hard drive out of the PB and installed it into my regular machine, booted up and did a dsl-hdinstall, no probs. Ran mkliloboot like it stated, everything seemed to be running perfectly. I took the HD out of my regular machine, thinking it was okay, hooked it up to the Primary IDE channel of my PB and I get an L 40 40 40 40 40 40 .... error.

So I switched the jumper to the Secondary IDE channel. Kernel starts to boot. The HD was recongnized as hdc and I get a "Kernel Panic: Cannot mount VFS to 3:00" or something like that.

So I took the HD back upstairs and tried to to just copy the Knoppix folder and the Boot folder to the HD using a DOS 6.22 boot disk. so I wasn't doing a HD install. Same thing still happened on the PB downstairs.

I have looked up both errors on google and cannot seem to get much assistance. I tried to edit the lilo file to look for /root on the hdc while the HD was attached to my regular machine and then move it downstairs, but no luck.

I have tried every single jumper combo, used fdisk /mbr on PB, copied KNoppix folder and Boot folder to HD on the PB with DOS, reformated with fdisk and cfdisk, almost everything you could possibly think. Or at least everything I could.

So here are my questions:

1. Why can't my PB boot from CD? It seems like it should be able to.
2: Can I, and if so how, do install DSL on a hard drive from one machine and move it to another?
3. How do I fix the lilo problems and get DSL to boot correctly?
4. Does anyone think I have to much time on my hands? Because my wife does...

Thanks for any suggestions anyone may have, I would greatly appreciate it.

Brad

P.S. I also tried all of the above with the syslinux.iso from Robert and regular 0.9.1 and had no luck.

skaos

Group: Members
Posts: 430
Joined: April 2004

Posted: Jan. 06 2005,15:44

1. Some older PCs simply cannot boot from CDs, or it could be that the boot sequence in the bios isn't set correctly.
2. It is possible - when moving the disk to your regular pc did you set it as secondary master? If so, disconnect all other disks and set it as primary master (which it will be in the PB) and try again. Lilo is quite particular about this.

bwever

Group: Members
Posts: 2
Joined: Jan. 2005

Posted: Jan. 06 2005,16:52

1. I figured that since it is so old and PB is notorious for using some very proprietary hardware that it just couldn't boot from CD.
2. I though I did set the cable so the HD is the Primary when I install DSL on my regular machine. For that matter I thought I tried to set it as the secondary with no luck still.

Good suggestion, I have tried so many different configurations that I will go back and try what you suggested again and let you know.

Max

Group: Members
Posts: 211
Joined: July 2004

Posted: Jan. 06 2005,16:59

I was trying to get DSL to boot on an old PB just last week with the same result. Zilch!

I just downloaded the new 0.9.2 with the syslinux boot (suppose to be better with older software) and will try that tonight to see if it makes a difference.

If you do figure out how to get it to work, please post. I will do the same.....

--------------
Using DSL on: IBM T42, IBM 560x, Dell Dimension CPx

Max

Group: Members
Posts: 211
Joined: July 2004

Posted: Jan. 07 2005,05:06

I got my old PB (166Mhz 48MB RAM) to boot tonight using the Syslinux version of 0.9.2 that's located in the repository.

If you don't enter any boot parameters then you will get an "mode error" right at the start up and you need to hit the space bar to continue, then after booting Xwindows failed to start with its default configuration. So after playing around I ended up booting with:
boot: dsl vga=normal xsetup

Once in Xsetup I choose:
"Xvesa xserver"
USB mouse -> No
IMPS/2 mouse -> No (don't know why this didn't work, but I had no mouse response when I choose "yes" for this)
So...on the next screen I selected "ps2 port" and "2 button mouse"
Screen resolution -> 800x600 (higher might work too)
Color depth: -> 24 bit
dpi -> No (I didn't know)

Then it all booted up. The sound worked on mine but I've pulled out the crappy PB sound card a long time ago and replaced with another. Also have some funky mouse freezing problems that I'm still trying to work out. Might just be a bad mouse.

Hope this helps...

--------------
Using DSL on: IBM T42, IBM 560x, Dell Dimension CPx

5 replies since Jan. 05 2005,20:51

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