Stop Microsoft
Operating Systems => Linux and UNIX => Topic started by: Calum on 18 November 2002, 15:17
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This is a dual booting windows/Linux question. I was going to put it in 'windows', i was going to put it in 'linux' then i was going to put it in 'lounge' but i thought in the end this was the most appropriate place for it. here goes:
Hello there, I recently bought this laptop computer:
(http://ebay2.ipixmedia.com/abc/M28/_EBAY_cb29d826de8bcef397f4a6fa0b4d4f46/i-1_B.JPG) (http://ebay2.ipixmedia.com/abc/M28/_EBAY_cb29d826de8bcef397f4a6fa0b4d4f46/i-1_B_L.JPG)
specs:
Pentium 75Mhz CPU
540Mb HDD
Colour screen
sound card
video card
Extra memory slots (not sure how much RAM it has!)
I just bought this on eBay. next my cheque will need to clear, and then i will need to wait for it to arrive, and then i will know all the specs.
My plan is as follows, and i know it's ambitious:
I want to dual boot windows 3.11 for workgroups with linux running XFce. I want both systems to be able to word process using pdfs, and i want both to be able to access the internet. I am planning to read up on ppp though, as i want to write my own simple connection scripts rather than using some kppp type 'connection manager'. I plan to use opera as the web browser for windows 3.11 and phoenix as the browser for linux, and i plan to use word 4 as the word processor in windows, and i don't know what in linux. kwrite? kword? kword does not handle the
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you might want to try OpenBSD, its small and it doesnt come with any packages so you will need to install only what you need after the install.
You might wanna try runnning Windows3.11 on top of FreeDOS.
win3.11 will have to be on the first partition, when i tried it on the second partion it wouldnt work proerly.
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i think i have found a good linux distro: Basic Linux (http://www.volny.cz/basiclinux/) looks like the thing, when installed on the hard drive, but i will look into OpenBSD too. As for FreeDOS, how can i even get a copy that will install? did you get it to work? i tried several times with no luck.
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Basic Linux is cool, I used that on a P75 before. It is based on slackware 3.1 I think?
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well it says it runs some software from slackware 3.5 and i have downloaded some stuff that it says is compatible. most of the stuff i want for a home workstation fits onto 3 floppies! of course that does not include gcc and X which are supposed to be about 12Mb in total. i haven't tried installing it yet but it looks promising from what i am reading.
browser opinion please:
phoenix or netscape 3? Of course i would rather phoenix myself, but this is the netscape browser (http://wp.netscape.com/download/archive/client_archive30x.html) that BasicLinux recommends and apparently it is 2MB only! compared with phoenix's 7MB that is a significant difference, and maybe i should go for that instead. I wonder if there's an old opera for linux, i seem to remember that opera 3 for win3.11 (which is what i plan to use for a browser on that side, unless anybody has any better ideas) is under 1MB!
So browser opinions please, people! :D
[ November 18, 2002: Message edited by: Calum: Linux Commando ]
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Give dillo (http://dillo.cipsga.org.br/) a shot, I'm sure 300Kb is small enough for anyone (http://smile.gif)
This browser is very cool, it doesnt support frames, but hell its 300KB!!!
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okay! will do!
so luckily you have used basiclinux, and presumably others have tried slackware, now i went here (http://ftp.in-span.net/disk/disk3/ftp.slackware.com/slackware-3.5/slakware/x1/) and could not find the files 'mouse' and 'startx', which this page says i need (http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/baslinux/bas-x.html) to install X properly. what am i missing here, does anybody know? thanks in advance.
[edit] just read the objectives page on the dillo site, looks very very good...
[edit] also, i already have the source for XFce and (presumably) for 'mouse' and 'startx' if they are indeed files, on my mandrake 9.0 CDs (i hope! i haven't opened those CDs yet, but i suppose they must be normal tar files, yes?), will these versions work in BasicLinux?
[ November 18, 2002: Message edited by: Calum: Linux Commando ]
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Calum you are reading wrong, it does not mean you need to download 'mouse' and 'startx'. They are commands. All of what it says in the box are commands for installing X.
[Calum@localhost calum]$ pkg x332bin.tgz
[Calum@localhost calum]$ pkg x332cfg.tgz
[Calum@localhost calum]$ pkg x332fnts.tgz
[Calum@localhost calum]$ pkg x332lib.tgz
[Calum@localhost calum]$ pkg x332vg16.tgz
[Calum@localhost calum]$ mouse
[Calum@localhost calum]$ startx
Although, I'm sure they've missed the xf86config step.
[ November 18, 2002: Message edited by: Tux ]
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and that would go after 'mouse' i suppose? well, i've never used slackware before, and although much of the trail has obviously been blazed for me, i think i'll be asking some dumbass questions on the way, but i do reckon it's time to partially shuck my mandrake 9 training wheels! :D
now i read it back, it's obvious that they are commands, and that there are five files i need to download... (http://forum.fuckmicrosoft.com/ubb/icons/icon11.gif)(http://honeybug.com/forums/images/smiles/balloon_duh.gif)
edit - MORE from calum's bumbling slackware dramas:
it says very little on this page (http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/baslinux/bas-c.html) about installing a c compiler in this new BasicLinux, and i am confused firstly about why the page doesn't seem to know what dependencies will be required. Also, i am confused about which C compiler actually gets installed! what would i execute to run it? anybody familiar with this.
It'sll be 2 weeks till my laptop arrives anyway, so no bother, and i am sure i'll hash it out if i have to by myself, but i just like to find out stuff before i try...
thanks! :D
edit - by the way, how much do you think the laptop should have cost me? i am interested to see how good or bad a deal i have got.
[ November 18, 2002: Message edited by: Calum: Linux Commando ]
[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Calum: Linux Commando ]
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As much as I love freedos and think it's really cool, I'd stay away from it if you want to do real work in DOS. Stability and program compatibility is an issue, and windows 3.1x doesn't work on it last time I checked.
If you don't want to use MS DOS, I'd suggest DR-DOS. It isn't GPL, but it is good.
You can also install DR-GEM and a bunch of it's older programs for free.
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well i do want to try FreeDOS since i know it has a free C compiler and also a GUI. Master of Reality pointed me towards a 36 MB downloadable iso for freedos, so i will try it one last time. However i did just buy a second hand (but unused) copy of MSDOS6.2 with WfWG 3.11 so that's what i will probably end up using.
as for serious work, all i really want to do is install MSWord4, get a C compiler to run on there and connesct to the internet, and i want to have fun figuring out how to make it happen. So far it looks like dual booting with windows 3.11 and basiclinux1.7(slackware 3.5)...
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Get Dr-Dos for free from www.drdos.net (http://www.drdos.net) (its free now caldera droped it years ago). And find yourself a copy of Deskview/X for DOS.
I would use Slackware/WindowMaker/Old Netscape/AbiWord.
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Better yet get FreeDos, and then get the Arachne Web Browser for dos (graphical) www.arachne.cz (http://www.arachne.cz)
Bobcat is also good: http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/bobcat.htm (http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/bobcat.htm)
More from:
http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/ (http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/)
Hmmmmmmmmm.... What about PicoBSD, that rules!
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Although I hate to say this running XWindows on a p75 will be painful. I run linux (mandrake 8.0) on a Pentium 266mhz Toshiba Tecra8000 laptop and XWindows is only usable when in something like blackbox. Even then it is sluggish.
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I have an old P100 Dell Laptop with 72MB of RAM and a 500MB hard drive running RedHat 6.2 and KDE. I actually have two hard drives, one with Win98 on it. It runs pretty respectably, even have Netscape 6 on it. If you open more than a couple of apps it will start showing the shortage of RAM though. Blackbox would be better.
I was planning on trying to install a non-X install of RedHat 8 last night but I don't have a CD-ROM drive so I was going to do a network install using the PCMCIA boot floppy. For some reason the RH8 boot disk doesn't like my PCMCIA system. RH62 didn't have a problem with it from what I recall. At any rate, I gave up on installing 8 on it. Haven't thought of a way to get it on there yet without network. And I don't have enough hard drive to download the install image and do a hard drive install.
[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]
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Why put Windows on it!
And I used to have Red-Hat 7.0 running on a PI-150 with 12mb of ram.
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:D i'm going to put windows on it because of interest value. i'd like to run windows over freedos, because then i will be running windows as an open source operating system! ;) also, i have only ever used windows 3 in college in 1996/1997 and i am curious. plus i think it would be good to finally see what real DOS is like. anytime i need to do something in DOS (like creating the basiclinux bootdisks for instance) i run into so many things that say 'microsoft windows no longer supports this option, to do whatever you were trying to do, go to the start menu and...' or similar.
as for X on a P75, i am willing to try it, if windows 3 can go on there, then why not linux/xwindows? i won't be putting X on there straight away though, i'll get used to the system thoroughly before i put X on it. but then i won't have disk space for much in the way of a desktop environment so i think i will install only icewm and xfce, which i think will run a lot better than some KDE or GNOME rubbish! :D
i can't wait for it to arrive! another week and a half i reckon before my cheque clears and it's in the post...
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It will run fine, just stick to WindowMaker or twm...
(WindowMaker is teh 1337'st)
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well as i say, i plan on putting xfce on there, and maybe icewm as well. also, i suspect it will be a 600 pixel screen, which if i calculate right will mean that X need only deal with just over one third of the pixels it would have to generate if i was using a 1024 pixel screen.
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Most likly 640x480@8bpp
That will be fine for twm, and Windows 3.1/11/whatever!
(Why not put NT 3.51 on there)
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reason is that i don't have NT3.51, and i just paid
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quote:
Originally posted by Calum: Linux Commando:
and that would go after 'mouse' i suppose? well, i've never used slackware before, and although much of the trail has obviously been blazed for me, i think i'll be asking some dumbass questions on the way, but i do reckon it's time to partially shuck my mandrake 9 training wheels! :D
now i read it back, it's obvious that they are commands, and that there are five files i need to download... (http://forum.fuckmicrosoft.com/ubb/icons/icon11.gif)(http://honeybug.com/forums/images/smiles/balloon_duh.gif)
edit - MORE from calum's bumbling slackware dramas:
it says very little on this page about installing a c compiler in this new BasicLinux, and i am confused firstly about why the page doesn't seem to know what dependencies will be required. Also, i am confused about which C compiler actually gets installed! what would i execute to run it? anybody familiar with this.
It'sll be 2 weeks till my laptop arrives anyway, so no bother, and i am sure i'll hash it out if i have to by myself, but i just like to find out stuff before i try...
thanks! :D
edit - by the way, how much do you think the laptop should have cost me? i am interested to see how good or bad a deal i have got.
[ November 18, 2002: Message edited by: Calum: Linux Commando ] (http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/baslinux/bas-c.html)
If you install those 5 packages from the d1 package set, you will have a working C compiler. You may even be able to use the newer versions of these packages from a newer version of slackware. The C compiler installed is egcs, which has been superceeded by gcc (I think). I can't shed much light on this one though Calum.
:rolleyes: Looks to Void Main :rolleyes:
If I Have some spare time this weekend I may just install basic linux and see what i can see.
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actually, you don't need to install it! download an older DOS bootdisk image (i used DOS 5.0 from bootdisk.com) and dd it to a floppy, then in DOS, unzip baslinux.zip and run make_fd, using your 'new' DOS5.0 disk as disk one and a cleanly formatted disk as disk two.
This method gives you the feel of basiclinux, but now i think about it, installing the c compiler is not available unless you stick it onto the hard drive.
on second thoughts, while basiclinux touts itself as a two floppy distro, i am seeing that it would be a LOT more powerful/more versatile if it were allowed to spread its metaphorical elbows over a few extra MB on the hard drive...
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Yeah, installing it on the hard drive is ideal, that's what I did. In fact, I may install basic linux on one of my partition and build it up into a nice, fast system (with X). That could be interesting if time allows me. Damn this cursed world, I think m0r was right about a longer day...
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i can't wait! i've never had an operating system before where i know where everything is and what it does! (well, certainly basiclinux offers this potentially) and i am looking forward to it when this laptop arrives (we're into the 'waiting for the cheque to clear' stage now, i reckon it might have cleared by maybe monday or tuesday).
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quote:
Originally posted by Calum: Linux Commando:
reason is that i don't have NT3.51, and i just paid
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because i do not endorse illegal software. I no longer have any illegal software installed and i am not about to start again, thank you. I got it second hand, and microsoft isn't getting any money for it, however as i understand it, it's legal to buy an original copy of a pre-95 version of windows from anybody who owns it.
I actually already have it, as i got a download from another forum member earlier in the year, however as i said, i do not in any way endorse illegal software. if you want free software, don't use windows is what i have to say, and i stand by it. i can afford
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I just installed the browser mentioned earlyier... its cool as!
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yes, it is very good indeed.
any suggestions for a small linux wordprocessor (for X) with a low overhead that can do .rtf files? Also, ideally it would want to be able to open (but not necessarily save as) .doc files in case some dumbass emails one to me, but that's not essential. What's the overhead and size of AbiWord like, and is there a slimmer but similar thing?
thanks all...
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Even System Software 7.x?
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sorry? i think i misunderstood the question?
are you saying that apple's system 7 is free? if so then, you are right (i think) but what relevance does it have to this thread?
(http://www.calumsmusic.netfirms.com/pandacar.jpg)
[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
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quote:
Originally posted by Calum:
because i do not endorse illegal software. I no longer have any illegal software installed and i am not about to start again, thank you. I got it second hand, and microsoft isn't getting any money for it, however as i understand it, it's legal to buy an original copy of a pre-95 version of windows from anybody who owns it.
I actually already have it, as i got a download from another forum member earlier in the year, however as i said, i do not in any way endorse illegal software. if you want free software, don't use windows is what i have to say, and i stand by it. i can afford
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no. as void main and several other forum members have pointed out many, many times before, pirating microsoft windows only helps to spread windows further faster.
i bought a copy of windows off of somebody, he no longer has it. if i had copied one, he would still have windows, so would i, and microsoft windows would have ONE more user. how many times does this happen in a day? it is part of microsoft's marketing strategy. by advocating software piracy, you help large companies get exposure and you hinder smaller companies from getting any revenue. everybody loses, most obviously the user, who loses both ways.
i cannot be arsed explaining this all again, and i already have mandrake linux 9.0, thank you very much.
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pirateing windows will do fuck all, its alrady everywhere.... and your not gonna help that... the person who will stop that will be a group of totally fucked up people like me breaking into Microsoft and releaseing there sourcecode and other things, send M$ into ruin.
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Another bad thing about Windows is even though you are paying money for your copy you may still be pirating. I don't remember what the EULA said in the 3.1 days (500 revisions ago). I am fairly certain that you need make sure you get the manuals with the covers still on them. I think that was the thing they used for the proof of purchase (for upgrade proof, etc). Also I think they already started using the holograms on the boxes.
If you only get the disks then you might as well be pirating. I believe it's better just to stay away from Microsoft software altogether. It's the only way to know for sure that you aren't breaking the law. Might want to ask an MCSE from the 3.1 days. Making money for Microsoft is their sole purpose in life so licensing should be their number one area of expertise.
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well i agree that staying away from microsoft would be the ideal solution, but you know, i am curious about 3.11. It's not like i'll ever upgrade it or anything! :D
and as for the manuals et c, yes i get the manual too. the guy offered to send only the disks to save on postage but i said i wanted the lot. Also, apparently it's still shrinkwrapped and has never been used, so that's about as good as it gets with windows 3.11 these days (i say apparently as it has not yet arrived, presumably the guy is still waiting for my cheque to clear).
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The MCSE wouldnt have changed from the MCSE days because I have not seen any changes in Minesweeper or solitare games. :D
Actually that reminds me, I told the RHCE guy that MCSE stands from "Minesweeper Counsoultant, Solitare Expert". He laughed, and laughed... and laughed some more. Actually that was about the only time I got a real talk to him.
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well, i heard that with older versions of windows, you used to get reversi (othello) as well as the 'big two' so maybe the MCSE was harder then! (reversi is harder than solitaire or minesweeper in my opinion, i prefer bubble bobble (http://www.calumsmusic.netfirms.com/pacman.html))
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I never seen Reversi in 3.11, And Microsoft dont care about it spreading illegally (along with many old things, like QBASIC).
I could have emailed you DOS 6.22 disk images
And you still have Windows ME.
I have no Windows on my PC except for X-Windows.
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yes thank you!
maybe i heard reversi was from windows 2 then. as for WinME, yes it's on the current laptop, not the new (old) one. if putting windows on the pentium, it must be windows 3. As for who has less windows, who cares?
also, i think i was telling you that microsoft like piracy. I would rather not pirate microsoft's stuff, since it will make them stronger. You windows pirates (lazygamer and so on) really like to fill microsoft's coffers and you don't even know it.
this thread's a bit off topic now though.
Haven't got the laptop yet, expecting it in a few days, will post when.
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I have seen Windows 2, but not much, i know Windows XP has all sorts of games that have been in Linux for years (Reversi, and other crap).
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I remember reversi from windows 1.
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rightyho.
the laptop has arrived. it has no CD drive, which isn't a surprise, but it does make me wonder how i'm going to get stuff on and off the hard drive! it has no internal modem, although it has two PCMCIA slots and i can use a Xircom credit card modem (which i happen to have kicking about) if i can get an operating system to recognise it, there is (of course) no USB or firewire port, so i cannot use my USB cdwriter as a CD drive, i don't think (unless there's some weird way of converting it) what the laptop does have is a serial port, a parralel port, something which might well be another differently shaped parallel port (haven't seen one like that before, with three rows of pins) and a 'docking' port, which has me totally baffled, as it is a big long port with four rows of pins (for want of a better word), all very small.
so, i used linux fdisk to create the following partition table:
1. 180MB - MSDOS 6.2 (soon to be windows 3.11 for workgroups once i get the dual boot happening)
2. 303MB - Linux (ext2)
3. 32MB - Linux swap (still appears to be ext2, not sure how that works yet)
Interesting problems ensue. the lilo that i downloaded from the basiclinux site appears to only want to boot to basiclinux, today i will be investigating if i can download GRUB onto a floppy (as floppies are the only way i have right now to get data onto the machine) and use it instead. seems the bios can only support 4 primary partitions but that's no problem since i only need the three i mention above.
One concern for me is that part of the install process of putting basiclinux on the hard drive is that you physically copy the kernel to /boot, but when i do this and try to boot from it, it hangs pretty early in the booting process (during the kernel stage, before any processes are initiated), so i don't know what's going on there. maybe i will have to find another floppy distro of linux to put on, but i really wanted basiclinux. i have read all the available basiclinux documentation about a half dozen times and this isn't covered. the documentation is quite terse about most things in fact, which is good in its way...
anyway, i might have to buy an external cdrom drive on eBay, but i am reluctant to buy an external modem and i am worried that i might have to recompile the kernel if i want to use the Xircom PCMCIA card, and last week when i recompiled on the mandrake machine i followed all the instructions in the other thread, and i still got a shitload of problems and had to reinstall, i think it's just me. also, of course, basiclinux does not come with source code, which i will need for kernel recompilation... i suppose i can download it from many sites elsewhere...
maybe not onto a floppy though...
anyway - thoughts anyone? (http://smile.gif)
edit - also, anybody know of a tool that i can install either in basiclinux or DOS that will allow me to split files across more than one floppy? one of the XFree install files is too big for a floppy, and i think some of the stuff i need to install for a C compiler is as well.
preferably this tool will allow me to create multiple disks on a windows 2000 computer, and then stick them together again in basiclinux, but that's a long shot and if i need to i'll settle for one that i can create the disks in mandrake 9.0 and then put them back together again using basiclinux or DOS.
thanks of course in advance... ;)
[ November 29, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
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I have an old Dell Latitude (the boner burner) that has no CD-ROM drive. I have a PCMCIA Linksys 10/100 Ethernet adapter that I used to do a network install of RedHat 6.2. It worked very well. I tried to upgrade it to RedHat 8.0 but the network boot disk didn't like my older PCMCIA hardware so I couldn't. It's ok though because I think RedHat 6.2 runs great on this old machine and there probably wouldn't have been enough room on the drive to upgrade to 8.0 anyway. In fact now that I think about it I am sure there wouldn't have been enough room. It's only a 500MB drive. But RedHat 6.2 and KDE run great on it at 100Mhz with 72MB of RAM.
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well, i don't think i want to put any big distro on there, i am happy with something the size of basiclinux (three floppies worth) also, i have no idea how to do a network install! not only that, but i am sure the PC card network card would need software to be recognised by the computer, so how would i install through it before i had installed the software?!?!?
:D of course there's a lot that i don't know yet, but i'll find out!
[ November 29, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
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The "bootnet.img" or "pcmcia.img" floppy that you create from the RedHat CD contains the network drivers. One disk contains all you need to start a network installation (assuming you have a compatible PCMCIA card). You can then install via an FTP, HTTP, or NFS server (preferably on your local network).
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hey that's pretty flash right enough! i wonder if mandrake has anything like that (i will check it out) and i wonder if the stuff on the pcmcia disk can be slapped onto the hard drive to be used as normal with, for instance, basiclinux.
good ideas...
meanwhile, i was trying to download the ide kernel (http://ftp.tiscali.de/pub/slackware/slackware-3.5/slakware/a5/) from here but it looks as if it needs me to compile it. i can't do that on one machine and then copy it onto the ohter can i? is it okay to compile a kernel on linux 2.4 and then just stick it into /boot on the basiclinux machine? as i said, basiclinux just wants me to 'copy the kernel into /boot' which doesn't seem to work for me.
kernels still confuse me. here's the spec for the basiclinux kernel (http://ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-3.5/kernels/bare.i/config), and this appears to be the same config file that comes with that ide kernel i just mentioned. does this mean (yes, i am slow!) that this file is the 'shopping list' that tells make what to include in the kernel? if this is the case (and if i knew anything about kernels) then shouln't i be able to download the source of that kernel and recompile using make after editing this config file?
of course there's a lot of other weird steps that i must somehow miss out as i haven't managed to config a kernel properly yet. if only it were as simple as cding into the directory and typing 'make'.
So. what's best re: kernel then? i suppose i will just have to download likely binary kernels if i can, unless i can get this one to work somehow.
Once i get lilo sorted i will start kernelling.
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so how much should a second hand CD drive cost then? and which of those ports should it connect to? the parallel one?
also, what the hell is that docking port for?
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hello again. well i made an image of the trinux pcmcia.img bootdisk, and it seems to have the driver for my pcmcia card on it. (edit - haven't tried it but that's what it looks like, i am almost certain of it) its kernel is a BzImage though, and i notice that basiclinux has a Zimage kernel. I presume that there's no easy hack where i can just copy some files somewhere and expect it to all work...
so how do i get this module to work in basiclinux? as i say, i don't have the source for the kernel, but i could get it off the slackware site i am sure, and recompile (except that i tend to fail at recompiling) and i'd have to do it using the mandrake machine. the driver itself appears to be a file called xircsomenumbers.tgz containing a file called xircsomenumbers.o which seems very simple to me. Just not sure if it's at all compatible. if i recall, trinux uses a 1.3 kernel, rather than the 2.0 kernel that basiclinux uses.
oh well, am i on the right track? or any track? am i whistling in the dark? should i just give up and get a 'real' distro? what the hell do i think i'm doing anyway? for the answers to these and other questions, tune in next week, same bat time, same bat channel for more from calum's thrilling (but ambling) monologue about how little he knows about linux when it all comes down to it!
[edit] re: getting the kernel source, what? i can't make sense of this! (http://ftp.tiscali.de/pub/slackware/slackware-3.5/source/kernel-source/v2.0/) why don't they at least have a readme in there!? oh woe et c...
[edit]hey! looks like this 5MB thing is the kernel! how come the binary is 454kB then? i am confused... i certainly can't put 5MB on a floppy...
[ November 29, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
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[ignore this message]
[ November 29, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]
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Calum I treid basiclinux today and i get the gay hpfs error. Version 1.7 seems to me to be seriously fucked. Unforunately I lost the old version I has in a catastrophic data loss thingy that happened a while ago. It is probably on some outdated FTP server somewhere. I might try to find it one day.
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no, that error comes from the version of DOS i was using. use a MSDOS 5.0 bootdisk instead and you'll get on fine. i installed it on its own partition by running it in RAM by running boot.bat in DOS, then running bas2hd to install it on /dev/hda2. Still trying to track down how to include xircom creditcard support though, i'll get there...
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i'm in over my head.
i can't make the xircom pcmcia card work in basiclinux or in windows 3.11 for workgroups, and i even have the xircom driver for windows 3.11 so how sad is that?
also, the computer has started to reboot randomly, every half hour or hour or so. i haven't seen it do this in windows, and i am reluctant to reinstall linux as i think it sets a bad precedent if it will need reinstalled this frequently.
i will probably end up buying a parallel port cdrom if i can ever find one, and a serial modem, which annoys me, but there you go.
I might then try JAILBAIT or some other linux. i might even try mandrake, but that really annoys me as i feel like i will be robbed of much of the customisability that i want to learn about. 'big name' distros just give me the impression of keeping things simple at the expense of keeping them cryptic.
well, i'm off to ebay. i've admitted defeat.
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i keep finding single and double floppy distros (http://luckyland.wox.org/tXt/) which have no intention of being installed on the hard drive! does anybody know if there is a way to cannibalise this linux distro so i can have XFree on basiclinux, while only using floppies to get it there?
just a thought. thanks et c...
[edit] well it looks as if i need this (http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/kdrive.html). i can't understand much of these instructions though. i'll get there. sorry i keep posting and answering my own questions. maybe i'm not asking the right ones of myself though, as i seem to not be getting much further than just downloading lumps of stuff off the internet and not doing much with them.
[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
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Right this is what I think you should do. Since your network card only works in windows.
1) Partition you drive so that you have one 20Mb partition and another that occupies the rest.
2) Install Windows (yuk) on the larger partition and get it online.
3) Download xf86 with windows but onto the 20Mb partition.
4) Boot off of the basic linux floppies, format the windows (large) partition as ext2.
5) Do the hdinstall of basiclinux onto the freshly formatted partition.
6) Boot into you new basiclinux install.
7) Mount the 20Mb drive and recover the files from it.
8) install XFree86.
That is an anoying but clean enough solution for the XFree problem, but if you will need to install any large packages again you are stuffed.
Maybe scp works over a serial/parallel connection. Void Main?
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a good enough solution however not quite specific to my needs, sorry to sound ungrateful,
actually the network card currently does not work with any of the systems on the laptop. as i say i have the xircom drivers but am missing something needed to connect to a network. it's probably the fact that i don't have tcp/ip set up in wfwg, so i downloaded it (it's 700k so no problem) and will try that. failing this, i think i'll be getting a serial modem as they seem quite cheap on ebay. can't find a decently priced cdrom drive though, i might have to get my zip100 drive back from storage...
if i get the xircom card operating in windows, then i can download there and flip the stuff over using linux, however i'd rather connect using linux to save me waiting for the download and not be able to use linux in the meantime. in a way it would be better to just get a serial modem and that way both systems would be on an even footing in a way...........
i heard that xircom used to have linux drivers for download, but not anymore!
anyway, thank you tux for going to the trouble of all this... i'll be using this thread as a way of continually updating my adventures on this laptop... looks like i have a lot to get through though.
edit - also i tried to use lilo for slackware 3.5, and also the lilo from the basiclinux page, and neither will do anything other than load linux. admirable yes, but if i try to add windows in the config file and then update the mbr, it will either just load linux all the same, or hang saying 'unexpected eof'.
so i am still booting into DOS and using loadlin. luckily i edited the autoexec.bat so that the first DOS prompt looks like a bootloader, giving you the option of 'win' or 'linux'. i'd prefer lilo to work though.
[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
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Grab GRUB from a more recent version of slackware.
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i just got X to work!!!!!!!!!!!
thanks to void main telling me about the 'split' command, i can now get files larger than 1.4MB onto the new (old) laptop! great! xwindows is now on there, i am about to install gcc and next i'll be putting icewm on too...
:D
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You could also have used "tar" to span multiple floppies. See the "-M" parameter:
http://www.gnu.org/manual/tar/html_node/tar_137.html (http://www.gnu.org/manual/tar/html_node/tar_137.html)
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Hmm Calum, my old DOS disks are on 5-1/4 inch floppies lol. Will the version of DOS on the Windows 95 CD work? Or would freedos or DR-DOS work?
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i have not tried either method, but both are worth a shot. i don't know how easy it will be to make single floppy versions of either, i used this disk image (http://www.micom.freeserve.co.uk/downloads/msd500bd.zip) from powerload (http://www.powerload.fsnet.co.uk/bootdisk.htm) and made a DOS disk using dd.
then you use the basiclinux 'make_fd' script to make the two floppies, using the DOS 5 disk as disk one, and a blank disk as disk two.
If you want a hard drive installation of basiclinux, you must boot from the loadlin version of basiclinux which runs in the ramdisk (using boot.bat) then, you must run the bas2hd thing, then you must copy the kernel from the directory that you have boot.bat ininto /boot. you then edit the boot.bat script to point to the new location of the kernel and bob's yer uncle! you can use the floppy version to install to the hard drive too but it's a red harring since the kernel is not compatible with the floppy > hard drive version for some reason.
i installed icewm on this computer now and i am looking for a small file namager. i am about to try xfm. looks like a lot of stuff wants me to have GTK+ installed. is it big? also will it have any dependencies that i will need to fill? i looked at the download page at gtk.org but they were a bit vague on both counts.
void main once more thanks for the advice! (http://smile.gif)
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nope, i've had it up to here.
both laptops now have a habit of switching themselves off or hanging unexpectedly.
i suspect hardware, as they have no software in common. for a fact i know the 'big' laptop has a dodgy power supply, and i suspect the battery (although i suppose it could be software as it happens more in windows) on the smaller one.
I'll get the power thing fixed on the big one and then sell them both as i am fed up with laptops.
the problem is that my girlfriend and i both start studying in february and so that gives me six weeks to get us preferably two new computers using roughly no money.
i will have to use the money from the sale of these laptops to buy a new desktop and maybe another second hand laptop (grrr!!!).
I really can't be arsed with this.
anyway, that's the update. just to ask, what's the site that tells me if i am getting a linux compatible desktop again? i will be buying from Maplins (http://www.maplin.co.uk/) i think and they tend to be very good at listing full spec of all the gear, and they#ll happily sell you the machine in bits and let you assemble it yourself.