Similar issue (Was: [ale] linux on a 486)

[Wandered Inn]

Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> 
> I'm in the process of trying to do a very similar thing - put Slackware 8.0
> on a 486 with 20MB RAM.  I'm setting up this machine for a home-school
> teacher who will be starting some kids in first grade in the fall.
> 
> I got to the point where it was asking me for IP addresses and the name of
> the NFS export, only to die miserably.  It occurred to me that although it
> asked me for network setup information, at no time did it ask me what kind
> of NIC I had nor did it give any impression that it had as much as attempted
> to autodetect one.  I noticed that the corresponsing link light on my
> Ethernet switch was not lit.

Here's what I'm using that at least gets me to a successful nfs mount.

3 floppies, bare.i (boot), color.gz (root), network (network.dsk). 
Standard boot/root process, I'm then prompted if I want to change my
keyboard map, I don't.  I them am told that I can go with setup or use
the network floppy to install network drivers.  I then type 'network'
return, and it prompts me for the network disk.  I put it in, and I'm
then prompted for various options to load my nic drivers.  Since this
card was not properly recognized, I followed the instructions to switch
to a different v. console and modprobe my nic driver (modprobe ne
io=0x280 irq=10), particularily since I knew what the card was setup
for.  I then switch back to the original v. console and exit the network
menu.  From there I go into setup.

When I tell it where the source goods are, the actual output of the nfs
mount is written to my console so I do see it's successful.  I had tried
using the lowmem.i boot disk, but it apparently does not have network
support, because the modprobe of the network driver would fail.

> 
> The various READMEs led me to believe that I needed the bare.i and the
> network.dsk floppies.  Upon reading the README for the network.dsk image,
> though, it said I needed the colors.gz rootdisk, and so I first powered up
> with the bare.i floppy and put in the colors.gz floppy when asked for a
> rootdisk.  At no time, though, did anything ask for the network.dsk floppy.

Are you sure?  Once you complete the boot/root process, it should
present you with some text that tells you that you can do the network
disk.

> 
> Can anyone tell me where my procedure went awry?
> 
> - Jeff
> 
> What's kind of funny to me about all this is that slack was the first distro
> I ever installed, back in 1995 - just me and a big stack of floppies!
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Michael H. Warfield [mailto:mhw at wittsend.com]
> > Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 10:01 AM
> > To: Wandered Inn
> > Cc: ALE
> > Subject: Re: [ale] linux on a 486
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 06, 2001 at 09:21:07AM -0400, Wandered Inn wrote:
> > > Trey Darley wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Dude. He just got done saying he TRIED Slackware. Better grab that
> > > > second cup of coffee. ;-)
> >
> > > Yeah, true.  What I tried to do was to add enough swap to
> > compensate for
> > > the lack of memory.  I'm going through the same process
> > again, this time
> > > adding an even larger swap.  It appears that my last
> > failure could have
> > > been attributed to problems with the network card though.  When I
> > > attempted to setup my nfs network connection, I received
> > errors.  I shut
> > > the box down, tried to reseat the nic, rebooted and I'm
> > cooking again.
> >
> >       OH!  $#@$#@$#@!!!
> >
> >       I totally forgot about that weird problem when I did a Slackware
> > install on those two laptops.
> >
> >       It was an NFS install, just like you're trying.  I found that if
> > I told the Slackware installer that it was NFS and specified the NFS
> > path, it got all sorts of errors.  Most often it got errors
> > complaining
> > about mount timeouts and RPC timeouts.  Which was really weird because
> > my NFS server was working fine.  Finally, I used Alt-F? (3 I
> > think) and
> > did a manual mount of the NFS mount point and that worked
> > fine.  Then I
> > went back to the installer screen on F1 and told it to use a locally
> > mounted path and specified the path to the NFS directory I
> > had manually
> > mounted.  That worked perfect!  I never DID get the Slackware
> > installer
> > on either laptop (PCMCIA network card) to mount the NFS directory
> > successfully, but mounting it by hand manually and telling
> > the installer
> > to use a local path, worked perfect, first time, both times.  This
> > was also Slackware 8.
> >
> >       With 8 Meg of memory, swap is definitely going to be important.
> > With that little memory, I don't thing the 2x rule (16Mb) would be
> > appropriate.  You'll need more than that.  Don't know what you tried
> > or what you have but I don't think I would give it less than 64Mb.
> > If you try doing to much at one time, you'll spend your life in swap.
> >
> > > I'll post my success or failure once I get there. :)
> >
> > > --
> > > Until later: Geoffrey               esoteric at denali.atlnet.com
> > >
> > > "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from
> > mediocre minds.
> > > The latter cannot understand it when a man does not
> > thoughtlessly submit
> > > to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his
> > > intelligence." - Albert Einstein
> >
> >       Mike
> > --
> >  Michael H. Warfield    |  (770) 985-6132   |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
> >   (The Mad Wizard)      |  (678) 463-0932   |
> > http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
> >   NIC whois:  MHW9      |  An optimist believes we live in
> > the best of all
> >  PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471    |  possible worlds.  A pessimist is
> > sure of it!
> >
> > --
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> > in message body.
> >
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--
Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at denali.atlnet.com

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds.
The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit
to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his
intelligence." - Albert Einstein
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