DSL on Libretto 110ct--Configuring Orincoco 802.11 a/b ComboCard Gold-pcmcia
 

Hi all,

I recently came upon an old Libretto 110ct sitting around collecting dust, and i decided to try to resurrect it with linux. I though Damn Small Linux would be a good distro to use. I did not have a compatible optical drive to boot from cd on the libretto, and even if I did, I have heard that the 110ct cannot boot from cd. So, I decided to take out the libretto's hd(20g Ide) and hook it up to another computer running DSL from a livecd. DSL was able to recognize the drive, and using dsl-hdinstall I was able to install DSL on the libretto's drive. I then put the hd back in the libretto, installed grub on the drive, and was able to boot up DSL. However, problems arose at the very end of the boot up and when I tried to start X windows.

The first problem arose when fsck tried to check the root fs. Here is the readout:
The weird thing here is that DSL seems to be looking from /dev/sda1, but the actual device is /dev/hda1. Some background information might be helpful. Originially the drive had Windows 2000 on it, and was consistenly bringing up the Blue Screen of Death. This was fine because I had no interest in using windows. I booted up Darrick's Boot and Nuke and erased the drive. As it was, DSL could not recognize the partitionless drive, so I used gparted to create an linux partition. The weird thing was that gparted listed the device as /dev/sdb and the partition as /dev/sdb1, and DSL on the other computer listed the partition as /dev/sda1. However, after installation the partition became /dev/hda1(I first noticed this when using grub's cli to boot for the first time). I am not sure what exactly is going on or why, but it may shed some light on why X windows cannot boot up.

I have set acpi=off and vga=808(some linux on libretto suggestions), but when I attempt to start X, the screen goes blank, I get the screen with the gray background and the 'X' cursor, but then it goes back to command line and gives me an error:

I have already ran xsetup.sh and chose xfbdev as opposed to xvesa(more suggestions from successful linux on libretto configurations). I have also noticed that .xinitrc is not present in /usr/X11R6/bin, but is present in /home/dsl. So, I added /home/dsl to the PATH, but still, no luck. I have also noticed that for the splitsecond that the 'X' cursor is present, I can move it with my mouse.Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Thank You,
Hal

Update....

I am still stuck; I have not been able to successfully install and boot linux on my libretto. However, I have made some progress, and I mean "progress" very loosely. I decided to check if my issues are because of some quirk in DSL, so I attempted to install an ubuntu command-line-system. Of course, I had to take out the hd and hook it up to another computer to install because I cannot boot from any external media(excluding floppy). As far as I can tell, the actual installation went perfectly, but when it came time to boot for the first time, a familiar error arose. The bootup dialog tells me it is checking for the root fs, but it never finds it. No matter what I set the "root=" argument to in grub, ubuntu complains about the lack of a root fs, and drops into a initramfs shell. Furthermore, I have tried this approach with two hds, and have gotten the same results. I decided that I had to find a way to do a native install, and I did.

I grabbed the initrd image and kernel from the alternate install iso and put it on my libretto hd. Using, grub, the kernel, and initrd image, I was able to boot into the text-based installer. I got momentarily excited when I noticed that the installer was able to read my pcmcia cd drive perfectly. The installation was commencing nicely, until it came time to scan for disks. The installer scanned and was unable to find my hard-drive. If I try to continue, the partitioner comes up, but shows no devices available for partitioning. I am now very much at a loss of what to do next. Any help or encouragement would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Hal

DSL on Libretto 110ct--Configuring Orincoco 802.11 a/b ComboCard Gold-pcmcia
 

Hey All,

I have finally succeeded in getting linux installed and booting on my libretto. DSL is now up and running, quite smoothly I may add, on the libretto. However, I have a new issue; I cannot seem to configure my pcmcia wireless card properly. I am using a Orinoco 802.11b Classic Gold PC WiFi Adapter Card, http://www.amazon.com/Orinoco-Classi...1285482&sr=8-2. According to the DSL wiki, this card should work out of the box. I insert the card and then boot up. When bootup reaches cardmgr, it recognizes that there is a card in the pcmcia slot. It loads several modules including ath_hal, wlan, ath_pci, and ath_rate_sample. The kernel definitely seems to recognize that it is a wireless card. However, after I get to my desktop, I do not know what to do to get connected. I have ran netcardconf, iwconfig, prism2, and wlcardconfig, but am unable to get it configured properly. I was hoping someone could tell me what I am doing wrong, and show me the correct way to get the card configured.


Thanks,
Hal

well from the looks of it you may have installed but the drive was never formated to ext2 or ext3. Checking root file system...
fsck 1.34-WIp (21-May-2003)
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module block-major-8
that what causes that. i cant find this(xinit: No such file or directory (errno 2): no program named "//.xinitrc" in PATH)
because it never read the file system.
so try the install again make sure set up you hard drive partition. and put grub on the mbr.make sure you set up a swap partition to.