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

Jeff Hubbs Jhubbs at niit.com
Mon Aug 6 10:59:16 EDT 2001


Byron -

Thank you for the "A-HA!" moment" moment.  I was going straight to typing
"setup."

I had forgotten that Slack drops you at a working floppy-booted system
partway through.

I could use a heads-up, though - given that this is a 20GB machine and I
want to put X on it, will I get ample opportunity to select a lightweight WM
like fvwm2?

- Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: byron at cc.gatech.edu [mailto:byron at cc.gatech.edu]
> Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 10:45 AM
> To: Jhubbs at niit.com
> Cc: mhw at wittsend.com; esoteric at denali.atlnet.com; ale at ale.org
> Subject: Re: Similar issue (Was: [ale] linux on a 486)
> 
> 
> > 
> > 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.
> > 
> > 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.
> > 
> > Can anyone tell me where my procedure went awry?
> 
> 1) Boot with bare.i
> 2) Install color.gz when the kernel asks for a root disk.
> 3) Login as root at the login prompt.
> 4) Type the 'network' command. It will prompt for the 
> network.dsk floppy.
> 5) Follow the proble directions. I always try to probe only 
> for the netcard
>    I'm using. 
> 
> That's it.
> 
> BAJ
> > 
> > - 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!
> > > 
> > > --
> > > To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" 
> > > in message body.
> > > 
> > 
> > 
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