Dell 2400 CDROM & Linux questions.
 

Hi There!

From the Radio Ranch, Downtown Lakeview, Louisiana!

Well, there's nothing like noticing things on your computer. I have this OLD, Dell 2400 desktop. It has both a CD ROM and CD R/W unit in the case. I generally don't use a CD unit as I download my stuff from a known, good, website and so far, I haven't had any difficulties come to me being on-line. However, my grandson came in with a CD full of old, 1950's, belt buckle-polishin', Honky Tonk music for me and wanted me to play it. Being a good Pap-paw, I opened up the CD ROM player and tried to get it to work. Well, it doesn't show up in the My Computer screen and when I go to check it in System, it says the driver is corrupted. :banghead: Now that's a fine kettle of fish, I've gotten.

Yes, it's a WINDBlow$ machine, but after I put Linux on it, I want the CD drives to work with Linux. Does anyone have an idea how this can be corrected, besides dropping a 16 pound adjustment tool all over the case?

With ALL the trouble I'v had with this and other computers (Free, Give-away, found on the street, etc) I should just BUY a new one with everything I want on it, LOL! (Now, I can't get the "Smiley window" to drop down....)

Thanks for looking,
Regards,

"Buck" - Chief Engineer & Janitor
KA5LQJ - The Radio Ranch

I don't quite follow you, is the system currently running a Linux or Windows OS? If its Linux have you tried to mount the drive yourself at the command line?

Well pardner. Being a dumpster diver computer owner myself. My last emachine came that way.

Depends on the specs of said Dell 2400 desktop on what linux will run on it.
Since you have 2 cd drives.

You can run a live linux cd Like lets say Puppy Linux in one cd cdrive and play the music in the other cd drive while running Puppy off of CD. It won't touch your Windows install unless you tell it to.

Edit: Well. After looking up specs for Dell 2400.
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/del...-30824846.html
Pentium 4, 512MB of ram. Puppy Linux should do you just fine and dandy.

lupu-520.iso should be ok and is a live cd.
ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-5.2/

Hi Rokytnjy, All,

Yes, it's a WIN XPEE HOME O/S. I'll have to add 2 gigs of P-2700 RAM to make it work with most any linux. I'll give "Puppy" a shot, but would like to use a distro of Linux that contains the digital radio programs I need to run my Icom 706 Mark II-G
All-band, All-mode transciever. I guess it's better to start out small and learn to crawl, before I can walk or run LOL! :D

The Gentlemen who said I should use Xbuntu 10.4 is a friend of mine for the past 30 years. He uses the stable version of Slackware on his radio and computer and it works real good. But, he said that Slackware would be too hard for me to learn with my medical/mental challenges. :study:. I want something real
simple to learn Linux on and then graduate to something higher and maybe eventually into Debian (stable).

I've had Caldera linux on a computer before, but after it was bought and the new owner started suing anyone who smelled like him, it promptly got dropped. It had some beautiful screen savers like planets and star clusters. Yes, I'm into nature pictures where there are no signs of "man." No cell towers, no electric high lines, no fences or roads. There is something very soouthing about that kind of picture that settles the mind down.

I'm also into all kinds of music, except rap and metal, those are just unsettling noise in my oppinion, but to each his own, LOL!
I like taking the pictures and adding music to it to make it a screen saver that you can relax your eyes by viewing and relax your nerves by listening.

Well, it's time to check my blood pressure, and blood sugar, then maybe a 'snack'.

I hope this has been of some 'help' to understand what I'm doing. I've got some extra blank hard drives (120 gig) that I can
put Puppy on, then remove the XP HOME hard drive and make the Linux drive the main drive, then when I'm finished, I can change back to do some database work.

Respectfully submitted,
Regards,

Don/KA5LQJ

Moderator response
 

Hi,

Please change your thread title to something specific to your query. Your current tile is cute but some members find it not appropriate let alone descriptive to your thread content.

------------

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <Linux-General> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Well, Check this out if you wish

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=15972

Join the forum and post what Puppy you are running. How you are running Puppy (whether frugal install, full install, or live cd with save file). Mention your Ham radio. I am sure these fellas are friendly and helpful and will get you going in Puppy Linux.

The search engine I used and simple search term I used to find this was

http://www.google.com/cse?cx=0159956...ams&gsc.page=1

You can type into the search bar what ever terms you know, (I am not a ham radio owner), to narrow down a bit what you need to get to either "fish or cut bait". ;)

Leaving you with this

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/InstallationFullHDD

The CD drive could well be dead. If you've checked the connectors/cables, and you try a liveCD (eg puppy) and the CD drive doesnt work, I'd say that its dead.

The CD-RW will also play music, its not just a burner.

Nah, you wont. 512MB isnt enough for a lot of distros, but there are plently you can run with that amount of RAM.

Wich programs do you need?

I had a look in my package manager (running debian 'sid'/unstable) and there are a few ham radio programs. I'd guess you want libhamlib2-

http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/libhamlib2

He may well be right. Your friend would have a better idea of your capabilities than us.

If you want to use debian stable, dont stuff around, just try it. ;) You've got the HDDs to test with, d/ling and burning debian is easy, and installing is not that hard. If you dont need closed drivers for video or wireless, its just as easy as xubuntu.

Personally, I find debian to be easier than puppy. That might be because I satrted with debian.

BTW, debian, debian XFce or debian lxde would run on your 512MB P4 just fine. I'd use Xfce, same as ubuntu. Debian has a Xfce/Lxde install disc as well, so you can get the desktop you want from install without having to stuff around. Its going to have a name like-

debian-6.0.5-i386-xfce+lxde-CD-1.iso

There is also debian 'live' images (you cant run the normal debian install CD as a live image).

LOL, you havent heard the stuff I listen to. Not rap, or metal, but its been called 'unsettling noise' by a few of my friends. ;)

I have an old rambus ram 2400. Love it.

Issues. Will only select the first optical media as a boot media, may have to disable one optical and just use a single disk to install.

Use master slave jumpers in the two and put them on the same ide channel. Use best quality ide cable. Never tried to use cable select.

Be sure bios reads both drives and any OS ought to work. If they are old drives then be sure to watch out. That era did not like to read burned cd's. Use best quality cd's and burn them at the very slowest speeds to get them to read.

Be sure to run memtest. Some dells did fail because of a bios setting so don't throw it away until you check on that.

It have used that old box to run everything. Still is peppy enough to use.

My "bad"
 

Hi Kustom,

Maybe I didn't mention it but the DELL 2400 is an XPee machine which I will convert over (another hard drive) to Linux.

The way I see it, the drivers are corrupted(?) This was a pre-owned computer given to me. The guy that gave it to me didn't have the "rescue disk" so I maybe just screwed.:mad:

Regards,
"Buck"

Windows can report 'drivers are corrupted' for various reasons.

Nope. Windwos rescue disks are for restoring windows software/settings, etc.. It will have zero effect on linux software.

All yuo can do is check the cables (make sure the cabels are alright), check the drive jumpers (if 2 IDE drives are conencted to the same IDE cable with the same IDE settings (master/slave) one of the drives wont work), check the power (if the molex power input isnt suppling voltage, or the wrong voltage, the drive wont work). You can also check in the BIOS.

If you've cehcked the cables, checked the power, checked the jmper settings, and the drive still doesnt show in the BIOS and/or wont work with a linux liveCD, the drive is probably dead.