Trying to Install Linux - UPDATED

[tjf0288]

Alright so I have an old PC, and all 3 install disk for Mandrake Linux 10.0... So why not dable my feet in Linux? :rolleyes: I FDISK the computer only to find out the BIOS is so old that there is no boot form CD option! So I tried to find a BIOS update that would allow it to do so, could not find any updates what so ever, even from Intel themselves! :mad: So my question is does anyone know how I can make a floppy in which to get the installation process started? I would really like to try this without upgrading the hardware as I have nothing left in my PC storage room to do so with... I also installed MS-DOS 6.22 while trying to find a solution... ;)

-TJ

EDIT: I realize many of you will ask for the hardware specs, I would like to see if anyone can help me out before I reveil how old this machine really is...

[bubba069]

Just boot back to the FDISK floppy and kick start the cd by hand, if you cant go to the mandrake site see if they have a boot floppy image. nothing else hit up their forums. pretty sure someone there will know how to do what you want.

would be interested in how old the box is that you can't boot to a cd, or atleast the bios type and version..

[tjf0288]

Just boot back to the FDISK floppy and kick start the cd by hand, if you cant go to the mandrake site see if they have a boot floppy image. nothing else hit up their forums. pretty sure someone there will know how to do what you want.

would be interested in how old the box is that you can't boot to a cd, or atleast the bios type and version..

I can't revert back on the FDISK Floppy cause I ran FDISK straight from MS-DOS. I did however install MS-DOS 6.22 while I was looking for something to try and access the CD-ROM, didn't work. The problem is when Mandrake switched to Mandriva, they got rid of all the free support, and downloads, and I have yet to see forums from them... I have a friend with Ubuntu Linux who is going to make a Boot Floppy and a copy of the install CD...

The computer is supposed to be a Gateway 2000, at least that is what the case says, has an Intel Premier/PCI II MB, Intel Pentium 75Mhz CPU, 256 RAM, a 8X CD-ROM, and the BIOS is copyrighted for 1995... It acutally ran Windows 98 SE, slow, but it still ran... ;)

-TJ

[bubba069]

well...hmmm..lets see

try this.

http://rpmfind.net/linux/Mandrake-devel/cooker/i586/install.htm

2. Make a boot floppy with Windows
If your computer cannot boot from the CDROM, you must make a boot floppy under Windows as follows:


insert the CDROM, then open the icon "My Computer", right click on the CDROM drive icon and select "Open"
go into the "dosutils" directory and double-click on the "rawwritewin" icon
insert a blank floppy in the floppy drive
select "D:\images\cdrom.img" in the "Image File" field (assuming that your CDROM drive is "D:", otherwise replace "D:" as needed)
select "A:" in the "Floppy Drive" field then click on "Write".
To begin the installation:


insert the CDROM in the drive, as well as the boot floppy, then
restart the computer.

**Edit

I googled "Mandriva boot floppy" and the first link is to the above.

[tjf0288]

well...hmmm..lets see

try this.

http://rpmfind.net/linux/Mandrake-devel/cooker/i586/install.htm



**Edit

I googled "Mandriva boot floppy" and the first link is to the above.

Well I got taht tow ork but after the GUI loads before I can select any options it says "No CDROM device found", which makes no sense cause it's loading off the CD... I'm lookin for a way around this...

-TJ

[bubba069]

sounds like your IDE controler is either going to die, or is just to dam old...

you can try and swap the drive with one from another machine, swap the IDE cable with a differant one, and move the drive to the slave channel with the HD and see if that helps.

try that in differant combos, might get lucky. I think the machine is just to old.

[tjf0288]

sounds like your IDE controler is either going to die, or is just to dam old...

you can try and swap the drive with one from another machine, swap the IDE cable with a differant one, and move the drive to the slave channel with the HD and see if that helps.

try that in differant combos, might get lucky. I think the machine is just to old.

No the problem is with the Kernel not laoding the drivers properly... At least found out somethign while searching...

-TJ

[tjf0288]

So I got hold of another box running much better specs, 500MHz P3?, AOpen MB, 40GB HDD, 50x CD-ROM, and an HP CD-Burner. I grabbed the box from downstairs (cause I was bored) which was missing covers and was missing several PCI components I remember building it with years ago. Opened it up, found no RAM, threw in 512 and fired it up. Windows 98SE loaded up problem free. Rebooted off the Mandrake Linux 10.0 installation disc and completely erased any information on the HDD and did a clean install. The process was painless. Now I've got it running I can do 3 things. Login, as root or my user. Reboot, and shutdown. Now here's my problem. I selected to install both the KDE and GNOME GUI packages and selected the option to automatically login my user in KDE upon bootup. Well all I get is a text mode with an image in the background and can't figure out how to load into the KDE GUI that I have played with before on Knoppix. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

-TJ

[TLLama]

If you want you can try downloading Fedora core 4, thats what I use and its very nice.

[tjf0288]

I'm pretty sure I found the command, "startx". I'll have to try it when I find free time.

-TJ

Edit:

I tried it and it always caused a fatal error, but in the error it said there wasn't enough graphic memory (MB graphics, I'm not using a card, yet). So I went back through the install process but instead of reinstalling selected it to update the settings and dropped the graphics from 24 bits to 16 and kept the resolution at 1024x768 and it works great. Thanks again but I'll stick with Mandrake 10.0 since it's working, at the moment (knocks on wood)...

-TJ

[rtsbasic]

Any particular reason you picked an out of date distribution to try? Not that I have anything against Mandrake, I used it for a good couple of years (I think versions 6.1 through 9).

Btw if you get any more problems with starting X, you can also use the command "xinit". This attempts to load the desktop system, but with only a basic console, so good for testing purposes (and good for running mandrakes configuration tools).

[tjf0288]

Cause it is what I had, I'm really lazy. I got tired of the computer taking forever to do anything in KDE so I bit the bullit and installed it onto the Dell as a duel boot system. So far I've installed Firefox and GAIM, but GAIM has a lot of bugs in it.

-TJ