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Topic: Running DSL on an old NEC Versa laptop

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The astronaut Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 3
Joined: Oct. 2006

Posted: Oct. 26 2006,11:42

Hello everybody,

I'm trying to install DSL on my old Versa 2650cd laptop.... but its not going exactly smoothly..... the laptop specs are Pentium 150MMX, 16Mb system memory, 40Gb harddrive - altho windows only lets me format/use 2.01Gb.... I think this is a bios problem, No USB ports.

I've download the DSL iso and burned it to CD and also created a boot floppy.

Initially I just tried to run DSL as a live CD but it would go thru the whole process of firing up only to get to a couple of line about creating authority file..... something.... something and then would just sit there not booting into a GUI.

I then tried various cheatcodes to get it to work and have had menus to select with desktop manager I wanted to use etc. but still no desktop.....

I then decided to install DSL to HD.

To do this I first created a 500MB partition on my HD using FIPS and then ran DSL using the install cheatcode..... I got to a menu with 9/10 options - I selected 3 - install DSL to Harddrive.... then selected /dev/hda2 answered all the questions and after messing around a bit it dropped me back to the menu with 10 options.....

So I quited out of the menu used fdisk to set-up a linux partition inside the partition I'd created with FIPS and tried again..... this time it seemed to install fine I opted to use LILO as my boot loader..... we got to the reset part of the process..... I removed the boot floppy and CD and restarted my machine.... lilo fired up I selected Linux..... the boot began a question or 2 later I arrived back at the same creating authority file screen as with running the Live CD and it all came to a halt again...

I've repeated the installation process several times still with no joy?

Has anyone got any ideas? How about a link to a virtually full proof 'how to install DSL on your machine' guide?

To be honest at this point any help would be great as windows is driving me insane and DSL could be my salvation....

Thanks.

^thehatsrule^ Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 3275
Joined: July 2006

Posted: Oct. 26 2006,13:46

2GB limit I think depends on your version of windows... Also make sure your bios has "LBA" support on that device.

It would be nice if you could output all the errors/warnings you get on boot - I'm guessing your error is about creating the "X authority" file - so you can't get into X, but you have full access to the console?

Anyways, create a linux swap partition first (or use a win9x swapfile) - I guess you'll need at least 128mb. See if this changes anything.

If you decide to use a frugal/livecd use the bootcode "lowram" - and see the F2/F3 menu or the wiki page on cheatcodes for more info and options.

16mb of ram may be cutting it tight, but others have gotten things to work with this amount.

The astronaut Offline

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Posts: 3
Joined: Oct. 2006

Posted: Oct. 26 2006,16:24

Currently I'm using windows 98se which should support fat32 (certainly thats what the disk is formatted with) so shouldn'tt imply a limit on HD size for anything upto something stupid (150Gb+). What happens is if I run windows fdisk or format it tells me the disk is 2051Mb big..... from reading stuff elsewhere on the net thje usual windows impossed limit is 2110Mb or something..... not really sure but a couple of folk recon its my bios faulty???

As for error messages apart from DSL not finding a HD partition on Live boot I actually get no error messages just a message :

xauth: creating new authority file /home/dsl/.Xauthority
xauth: creating new authority file /home/dsl/.Xauthority

I've tried the lowram option - altho possible not in conjungtion with the install option???. I have also tried the cheatcode to go to runlevel=2 i.e. text mode but encounter the same problem..... the only way I can get console access is to run the install option and then quit out of the options screen???

Anyway I don't know if that helps you diagnose my problem further or not??

But thanks for the suggestions, the way I see it everything gets me closer to the solution.

I'm going to head home now and fight with it some more and hopefully later on this evening I'll be posting from the evil laptop to say I've fixed it...... or not

Amusingly when I use fdisk under dsl console it recognises that the HD is a 40Gb model..... so whatever the problem with the HD is its got a windows Component.

^thehatsrule^ Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 3275
Joined: July 2006

Posted: Oct. 26 2006,19:07

Runlevel 2 will _not_ try to load X, therefore you shouldn't get that error msg again.

Use the lowram option with a frugal/livecd session. See the wiki page on cheatcodes for a "super-lowram" combination.

The astronaut Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 3
Joined: Oct. 2006

Posted: Oct. 27 2006,13:36

Unfotunately even thou runlevel 2 will -not-load X I still have the same problem.....

I've tried it numerous times with the option dsl 2 at boot prompt and each time it goes through the whole process only with slightly different options and still dumps me at some "authority creating file thing....."

I may however have fixed this by trying a range of other things.

ta.

5 replies since Oct. 26 2006,11:42

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