Linux boot catch 22
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Aninhumer Nov 13, 2005 12:20 PM EDT |
I have encountered a small problem installing Linux on a Satellite 100CS, To boot from the external (PCMCIA) cd-rom drive it needs power, To power the external cd-rom drive needs a booted OS, (to manage power I think) OR a 5V DC input, And I don't have a 5V DC input, and, if I don't need to, don't want to get one. Oh and I think the whole PC's been modified. Is there some program that can boot from FDD, handle power to the cd-rom, and then boot from it? Oh and to top it off I don't even know if it will run Linux at all! |
| bstadil Nov 13, 2005 7:45 PM EDT |
Why not boot Linux via the floppy?
Suse thru version 9.3 had the option of making 3 floppy disks then install via http://FTP. One of the disks could be used later to boot the system. I looked at SUse 10.0 but could find the option. Try and google. |
| Aninhumer Nov 14, 2005 7:01 AM EDT |
I can't connect to the internet with this laptop, my dad lost the external modem. I have had a look for floppy only distros, but they don't seem to be what I need. My friend might have a serial modem, though, there is still hope! |
| bstadil Nov 14, 2005 4:52 PM EDT |
I think you should try and get hold of the Suse floppies anyway. They might just have a driver for the PC-Card CD drive. The drivers is on a separate disk and there is a fair selection from what I recall. If you have access to another computer you can use that on for the install. Provided you have ethernet connection. I am not familiar with the Satellite 100S |
| jimf Nov 14, 2005 5:02 PM EDT |
Aninhumer: If you are running a Tosheba Satellite 100CS, I would seriously doubt that it's worth while trying to run SuSe. I think you are just spinning your wheels. You may have some sucess with something like Puppy Linux or one of the lighter Distros, but you just don't have the resources to run any of the full blown Distros. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Model name/No. Satellite 100CS / PA1217U-S2xx Processor Intel SL-Enh. Pentium 75MHz Memory(MAX) 8MB/40MB HDD 504MB |
| Aninhumer Nov 15, 2005 9:43 AM EDT |
I don't intend to run anything too heavy, at the moment I just want anything other that windows.
There is a video conflict that means that, in windows, I can't use any more than 16 colour resolution. Are there any reasonable distros, with X, that install from floppies only? It seems, from what I've seen that in the past floppies were the only way to install anything. So I figure there must be something I can use. I think it's been modified from the specs quoted above, it has around 750mb of HDD. |
| jamesstansell Nov 16, 2005 12:08 AM EDT |
Aninhumer: Here are some ideas for you (sorry if I'm being long-winded). The good news is that I can answer one of your questions with a resounding YES! As far as I can tell, no reasonably modern distro includes both a floppy install and X window system. (Distrowatch would be more useful if it included a way to search for "includes floppy installation method") The floppy-based distros tend toward recovery/utility (but those are increasingly CD-based) and thin-station (likely tending to CD-based or network boot.) You might check out things like Thinstation (http://sourceforge.net/projects/thinstation/), LTSP (http://www.ltsp.org/) or the abandoned LRP (http://www.linuxrouter.org/) with an eye to using them to boot-strap a more desirable system, but the outlook for that is probably quite low, so lay that idea aside for now. A reference point for you is from Dirk Eddelbuettel (a Debian developer I think) who wrote up his experience with your model about 5 years ago. http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/t100cs.html is linked from both http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/toshiba.html and http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Operating... This answers your 2nd (implied) question about can the 100CS even run Linux at all. Yes, it's been done. But that was several Debian releases ago, so keep the reference handy, but let's see what else we can find. The Ubuntu wiki pages mention several Satellite models, but not the 100CS. Given the nature of the system, though, both KDE and Gnome are going to be too memory-hungry; even XFCE may be. You're going to need a lighter setup - possibly icewm or even fvwm. Equinox Desktop Environment (EDE) is a new one for me that showed up when I searched, and may be usable. But let's get X11 running first! I've heard, but not yet investigated, that many CD-based installs will have a way to start the install by booting from floppy, for use with older machines that can't boot from the CD. This sounds like it corresponds with your first question. If anyone has experience or pointers for this I'm interested too, as I have such a machine that I'd like to try Xubuntu with (maybe I'll have time during the upcoming holidays.) The tool they use might be SYSLINUX (http://syslinux.zytor.com/) or it's ISOLINUX cousin. Or possibly Smart Boot Manager (SBM) (http://btmgr.webframe.org/). In particular https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SmartBootManagerHowto looks promising for my case. Also, LOADLIN (http://elserv.ffm.fgan.de/~lermen/) is a way that I've been able to boot in the past (booting into Win/95 first in my case.) But I'm not sure now if that can be used for installing from the CD-ROM. In summary - some answers but mostly just more questions. Please let us know about your progress and what further questions you come up with. Before I finish, I should reiterate what jimf said about resources on this laptop. In brief, resources are very constrained. You won't be able to run a Gnome desktop like Ubuntu installs by default. But an Ubuntu 'server' install adding X11 and some selected packages could be workable. How much of the maximum 40 MB RAM do you have anyway? Puppy Linux claims to run in as little as 32 MB, and would be a good distribution to try. In fact, it even has a page about computers that can't boot from the CDROM: http://www.goosee.com/puppy/boot2pup.htm -james. |
| SFN Nov 16, 2005 4:15 AM EDT |
"As far as I can tell, no reasonably modern distro includes both a floppy install and X window system." Well, hang on a sec. Let's assume you use Debian. I'd imagine we could assume lots of different distros but I'm familiar with Debian. You can install from floppies with Debian and do a bare bones install (basically, choose no packages). Once installed, you can apt-get your way into something like Fluxbox or Xfce. It's more complicated than it sounds but, unless I'm forgetting something big here, it would definitely work. Now, the kind of performance - especially video-wise - that your going to get out of a 100CS is not going to be too thrilling but if you're prepared for that, you should be OK. |
| jimf Nov 16, 2005 5:07 AM EDT |
Look at this page (scroll down to floppy based) http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=links |
| Aninhumer Nov 20, 2005 3:02 AM EDT |
Thank you for your advice, but there are few problems. I have already tried the SBM floppy, it's certainly useful, and I'm glad I have one now, but it can't detect my external cd-rom because it needs power from a booted OS (or DC transformer). I cannot connect to the internet with this laptop, unless my friend finds his external modem, and even then I'm on 28.8 kbps. What I really want is some way to install a reasonable OS, with X (Xfce or Icewm is fine) from floppies, I don't care if I have to download 50 floppy images to do it! |
| kjhambrick Nov 27, 2005 12:31 PM EDT |
Maybe try slackware at: http://www.slackware.com/install/ There are a number of boot / root disks ... one of them may work to activate your PCMCIA CDROM ( the sbootmgr.dsk looks promising ). There are also a number of window managers too ... you will want to choose wisely here with your limited horsepower. HTH -- kjh |
| Tom Apr 02, 2006 3:18 AM EDT |
Hi!everybody!I am studying linux kernel.On i386 plateform trampoline.S or kernel/head.S We can see assembly code like these:
mov $1, %bx # Flag an SMP trampoline--on trampoline.S
or on kernel/head.S --kernel 2.4.28
#ifdef CONFIG_SMP
110 orw %bx,%bx
111 jz 1f /* Initial CPU cleans BSS */
112 pushl $0
113 popfl
114 jmp checkCPUtype
115 1:
116 #endif /* CONFIG_SMP */
I want to know:why kernel can use bx register to indicate Bootstrap Processor(BSP)-->bx=0 or AP-->bx not equal to 0.so simple code.Unbelivable! Intel MPS1.1/1.4 did not record these messages and IA32 developer's guide,Volume 1~3 did not,too.Could anybody tell me why?or where I can find any document about this?Thank you very much!! |
| grouch Apr 03, 2006 1:55 AM EDT |
Aninhumer: From 2003, Debian on a Toshiba Satellite 100CS: http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/t100cs.html You're going to have to be extremely selective in what you put on there. You might also want to take a look at: http://users.netwit.net.au/~pursang/lofat.html "Building The Lo-Fat Linux Desktop" |
| number6x Apr 03, 2006 4:40 AM EDT |
Just to add to one of the suggestions above. I would not recommend puppy linux for this machine. Many people think that because puppy is small, it must be good for older hardware. But puppy installs itself into RAM, and older hardware usually does not have much RAM to spare. Furthermore, laptops usually share a few megs of RAM with the video card, reducing available RAM even more. Running Puppy would probably require setting up swap. Still the performance would be sub-par. Check out Tom's Root Boot http://www.toms.net/rb/ "The most GNU/Linux on one floppy" |
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