Installing on compaq 420CX
Forum: Laptops
Topic: Installing on compaq 420CX
started by: madchaz
Posted by madchaz on Feb. 01 2004,01:44
Hey allBeen looking for a distribution to do the following.
Turn my old 420CX laptop into a nice terminal
what it needs is rdesktop and vncviewer. DSL seams perfect for this, but I have one problem
Here is the computer's specks
Pentium 1 (low end) CPU
16Mgs of RAM
500Mg HD
a floppy drive
built in mouse
netgear PCMCIA network card
No OS
that's it. I don't have a CD-ROM, so geting DSL on it is a bit of a problem for me. As anyone got any idea how I could do this?
I have another computer running gentoo linux and windows xp as a dual boot. (mostly boots to linux)
I can also probably get a directconnect cable or use the network card to send stuff to it, once it as something it can boot off of.
Thank you
Mad Chaz
Posted by donkey wrestler on Feb. 01 2004,21:34
Mad Chaz, I used a parallel port Zip drive and floppy distro called Tomsrtbt to install DSL to a laptop without a CD drive. It uses a DSL boot floppy, and recognizes the partition I copied DSL to as a CD. IT runs OK, but I'm having problems with low memory right now, only 16 MB. I'm trying to install it the HD so it'll boot normaly, but no luck yet.As far as gentoo, and the networking stuff goes, you should be able to connect the laptop to the gentoo box as a terminal client, and install from there. You'll need a boot floppy to do this as well, and it has to support networking obviously.
JP
Posted by Rapidweather on Feb. 07 2004,21:59
Just some thoughts on getting DSL to work on that little laptop. I put grey cat linux on a 120 mb Compaq laptop with only 8 mb ram, and it was slow, but did work. First, I installed MSDOS 6.21, then I used a laplink cable and MSDOS interlnk/intersvr to transfer the folder with Grey Cat linux. Used a boot floppy to get it going. You could dothe same, with the /knoppix folder, from another machine. I can see
some problems with DSL, in that you will want to partition your 500 mb hard drive to provide a swap partition, and also a partition for
your restore files, backup.tar.gz and filetool.lst (That partition can be
small, about 25 mb.) You will probably have to use an external hardware modem, connected to the serial port, to get it online with wvdial. I would use tomsrtbt linux to do the partitioning, then see about how you would get /knoppix transferred to /dev/hda1. I would make /dev/hda1 about 200 mb, so you can have msdos and room for the 50 mb /knoppix folder too. You can install Windows 3.1 in there with that much room. Another useful OS to put on top of MSDOS is Arachne 1.70. It's a free download, and fits on a floppy for the installer on your hard drive. Arachne uses a hardware modem just like Linux, to get online.
I don't know how to
transfer the /knoppix folder to /dev/hda1 without some sort of OS there, just using tomsrtbt, for instance.
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If somebody knows, let us know. I have used "dd" to copy partitions to another hard drive, connected to the ide cable in the
same computer, master/slave. Don't have a cable to fit a laptop hard drive, they do exist however, to connect a laptop hd to a big machine, and use something like Powerquest's Drive Copy to copy a partition over and expand it to fit. That program can go up in size, but now down. With a normal sized 500 mb hd, you can just install it as a slave in another computer, and copy using dd or Drive Copy. I do it all the time, with SuSE, and Debian, both hard to set up right, so it's easier to just copy.
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Here is my howto on the rest of it for DSL, as far as I know:
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/general_howto >
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