I am working with a Dell Optiplex GX100 with an Intel Celeron 433 MHz CPU, 192 Mb SDRAM, two Maxtor 20 Gb HDDs, a Samsung IDE CD-ROM, and an FDD. I downloaded the three Slackware 11.0 ISO images and burned them to CD-ROMs using Mac OS X 10.3.9. I used Maxtor MaxBlast 4 to clean up the HDDs. I forgot to add that I used fdisk during the installation to delete the DOS partitions and make swap and ext2 partitions.

After all that, I inserted the first Slackware CD and rebooted. I tried both the "sata.i" and "bare.i" kernels, and both times Slackware could not "find" the CD-ROM to install the packages! I had it search a couple times with each kernel and then told it to use hdc which is what appeared as the Samsung CD-ROM on boot-up. I tried downloading an executable to use in burning a boot image to a floppy, "boot.i" if I remember correctly, however this floppy would not boot. If I boot my machine now, all I get is an error, "Error Finding OS".

I was going to buy a distribution from the Slackware Store, but the Web site is not responding at the moment. Does this package come with everything I'll need to install it, including boot disks, etc., and start using it?

Help!

Russell

Did you try any of the 2.6.x kernels ... maybe they will detect it. (huge26.s or test26.s)

why would 2.6 detect it and not 2.4? this is old hardware.

Well, I recommend trying out various kernels and seeing which one detects it. Some kernels have more compiled in (like huge26.s), some have less (like bare.i) ... which one is more likely to detect a drive as opposed to fail to detect a drive ?

if im not mistaken they bare.i is just the 2.4 kernel without scsi/sata support and huge26.s is the 2.6 with support and both are almost entirely modules.

but i had this problem on my old 166 and i had to save it to the harddrive and do an install from the hard drive

Not sure about bare.i, but huge26 is definitely not "almost entirely modules", which is why it is so huge. In extra there is a generic 2.6.17 kernel which is almost entirely modules and has a modules package which must also be installed.

Brian

ok i got huge26.s confused with the 2.6 kernel that you have to install the modules in /extra

With whatever kernel you booted from, have you tried the "dmesg" command before running setup to see what the kernel detected?

Well, it's true that huge26.s does require modules ... but it has a ton of stuff compiled in too.

I dunno, I mean try out the kernels and see which one works. I'm pretty sure I've seen another post with a Samsung drive not working ... and I think I remember that a 2.6.x kernel did detect it properly. Surely one of the 2.4.x has drivers compiled in for it too ... look around.

The last time I saw this problem was due to cheap/bad medium. Are you sure your CDROMs are good and you got a good burn?

This is only my second attempt at a textual installation of Linux, the first being RH 5.1 in 1997 or so. I have been successful in installing RH 9, Ubuntu 5.10, and Debian 3.0 on this machine, all of which ran slow(er than I expected), and also gave me no choice to increase the resolution (RH did, but it was the slowest of the bunch) of my display. It was setup by the O/S as something like 600 x 800 - in any case it was lower than the monitor could handle. Ack.

I haven't tried any other Kernels due to my inexperience in doing so.

Where would I type "dmesg"? At the root prompt? I didn't think that the drive was undetected as I had to boot to it to start the installation. I also watched the boot up sequence and saw a listing for hdc as a CD-ROM drive.

I used Imation CD-Rs to burn the images to on a MacPro using a Sony DW-D150A burner. I haven't had any trouble in the past. OS X Disc Utility did a verify after burning and gave no errors. My first thought was that something had gone wrong in burning the images and that maybe it would be better my first time to buy a copy from Slackware so I could get up and running. It seems that the Slackware Store is still off-line for some reason...

This guide was written for Slack 9.1, but things are very similar so don't be put off!

http://www.bitbenderforums.com/vb22/...?postid=311808

Trying different kernels is as simple as entering the kernel you want at the first opportunity you have to type stuff (it's shown on that guide as the first picture) - so in this case:

huge26.s

or maybe even give:

bareacpi.i

As the picture says, push F2 for a longer list and just rinse & repeat until you get your drive up.

dmesg is typed at the root prompt (picture 2!), yes.

I reckon your media is fine =)
- Piete.

Edit: The only part that i'm not keen on is the use of fdisk instead of cfdisk ... just so you know; i also use a different partition scheme, but that's so personal that it's really a non-argument.

Hi,

First, did you do a md5sum check of the iso(s) you downloaded? The verify after burn just checks the written/burn media against the original downloaded iso. The md5sum check will check against a known checksum before the download to verify a valid download.

You would do a dmesg from the console. You could do a Alt + F(n) to get another console where (n) would be 2 thru 6. You can switch between the consoles with the key combination.

Just doing a dmesg will require you to read rather quick! To slow or control the stdout, do a; 'dmesg |less' (the pipe is shift + \). This will allow you to control the output via the cursor control keys (arrows, pgup & pgdn).

You could do a 'dmesg | grep hd' to find the /dev/hd* (were * would be the device assignment. This will provide you with the device assignments that the kernel recognized. If your cdrom is atapi do a; 'dmesg |grep' ATAPI to see the device assignment.

You should read the release notes for the Slackware 11 distro to get the support information for the various kernels.

BTW, you can 'man' any command to see the structure or definition.
I would also suggest that you read some good online reference, see my sig. Also the commands that I showed should be issued without the quote marks from the console as root.

That does not sound right at all considering you got older hardware...the bare 2.4 kernel found everything on my system (SATA HD, USB internal card reader, Plextor DVDRW, and so on). I think you got some other issues here. Check the md5sums on the install CDs you downloaded, perhaps run memtest on your memory.

Hello Everyone,

For some reason, I kept having trouble with the CD-ROM not being detected. I finally waited for a nice quiet time (a rare commodity in my house) and switched machines to a Dell Optiplex GX60. This machine is newer, faster, and has a CD-RW/DVD-ROM. Although this defeats the purpose of setting up the old machine... I got Slackware running and now can use, tweak, break/fix it which was my main goal. On this machine, during installation, Slackware was able to detect the disc for setup just fine. I'm going to see if I can scrounge another CD-ROM, just in case. Oh yeah... as a Newbie I also discovered how to use fdisk and partition drives the wrong and right way for setup! Thanks so much everyone...