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Old 04-03-2003, 04:11 PM   #1
orange400
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My 486 is almost complete!! Got a few qs for ya ...


My 486 is getting closer and closer to seeing the light of Linux! The LILO boot loader is running, and it dual boots into DOS and Debian, but Debian isn't working, not quite yet.

It can't init the X server still. I mean I think it goes into it, but it's running at a resolution that my monitor or vid card can't handle. Remember, I'm running a pre-PCI 2D graphics card on a 14" monitor ... yeah.

I was pushin it a little and thought my system could do 1024 x 768 @ 70 Hz, guess I was wrong. How do I boot into the text-based terminal without loading X? If I can get into my system, I am almost certian I can fix it, thanks to the help of you guys ... you all taught me well!

Like you know in windows systems how you strike F8 when it just begins to load to get to a menu? Or how you hit DEL when your computer is starting up through the BIOS to get into the BIOS? I was hoping there's something like that for the loading of Linux ... is there? I'm running debian-3.0r1-i386.
 
Old 04-03-2003, 04:14 PM   #2
orange400
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Oh one more thing if I may ... do you think the version of Debian I'm installing is too overpowered for my system?
 
Old 04-03-2003, 04:32 PM   #3
Tinkster
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Let's put it that way:

Every bigger distro (RH, Mandy, SuSE, ...)
uses a specialized Kernel version, Slack,
Debian, Gentoo, ... use the stock kernel...

It would be hard to find *any* that would be
overpowered unless they don't provide pre-
fab packages that are made for >= 586 :}

Cheers,
Tink

P.S.: If of course you decided to run a website
with APache, MySQL & PHP that's targeted at
10.000.000 hits a day I'd say get a different box ;)

My point was it's not the Linux that "overpowers"
a box, but rather what else you try to do on it ;)

Last edited by Tinkster; 04-03-2003 at 04:35 PM.
 
Old 04-03-2003, 10:13 PM   #4
Capt_Caveman
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>How do I boot into the text-based terminal
If you are getting to the point where X tries to load but gets hung, you can CRTL-ALT-DELETE (BACKSPACE?) to kill the Xserver. That should drop you into the command line. From there you can edit /etc/inittab (path might be different in Deb.) to say:

id:3:initdefault: (if your booting into X, it should have a 5 there)

I think there is also a way to change init from lilo, but I haven't tried it. I've seen it in a couple of posts here though, so try looking around.

BTW, seeing linux run on ancient hardware is pretty damn funny. Good luck.
 
Old 04-03-2003, 10:21 PM   #5
Capt_Caveman
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Thought I'd seen it before! Check out this thread, there are a couple of solutions which might work.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...&threadid=3230
 
Old 04-03-2003, 10:26 PM   #6
cuckoopint
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easiest way in lilo, is to send it some boot options, such as:

linux single
(or)
boot=/bin/bash

which should boot into init 1, and allow you to do administrative work like Capt_Caveman mentioned. then reboot, and everything should be good.
 
Old 04-04-2003, 12:23 AM   #7
orange400
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Hey! That info looks real good. I'm going to run upstairs and fix it (hopefully). I'll post some pics of my bare naked 486 tomarrow ... remind me if I forget, you won't believe what I did to it ...
 
Old 04-05-2003, 10:47 PM   #8
orange400
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As I watch my boot, it enters runlevel 2 ... is this why X isn't working? Do you think it isn't setup correctly for my video card?
 
Old 04-05-2003, 10:52 PM   #9
cuckoopint
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in debian, one can choose to do what one feels like with runlevel 2-5. Therefore, if you have xdm setup on 2, it will boot X on 2.
; )

As for the X, do you get a console login after booting into 2? If so, what happens if you try 'startx'?
 
Old 04-05-2003, 11:05 PM   #10
orange400
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What I meant by overpowered for my 486: X running slow, things take a long time to lead, etc...

Anyways I set the runlevel to 5 in my inittab and it still does the same 'ol thing. It loads until it shows the text login (normal), and then goes to a black screen for 15~20 seconds, flashes the login screen for ~2 seconds and then goes back to the black screen. It repeats this pattern until I do a alt-ctrl-delete to turn it off
 
Old 04-05-2003, 11:12 PM   #11
Crashed_Again
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I can't believe you got X to run on a 486. You should feel lucky that its working at all. I don't think running X on a 486 is recommended. Thats why your running into all these issues.
 
Old 04-05-2003, 11:46 PM   #12
Capt_Caveman
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Did you try setting the run level to 3? If your booting into 5, it's probably looping because it needs X to bring up the graphical login, but X keeps on crashing so it keeps on trying to restart the Xserver.

If you can change it to 3, you should get the command line login. From there you can monkey with the Xserver settings until you get a config that's viable. Also down the road, things might run better overall if you use one of the light-weight window managers. Your definitely not going to want to use the GUI unless you have to, because it's going to absolutely crawl.
 
Old 04-06-2003, 03:04 AM   #13
orange400
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Well it ran '95 real real smooth and very responsive until I lost it due to a fix to my hdd (don't think I'm an idiot, I've fixed hdds through opening them up without damaging them). I've been playing around with the configs, but it's just all too confusing. It doesn't have a XF86Config file, at least not one that I can find. I have found similar things, but not that.

When I start linux using "linux single" at the bootloader, lilo, I get to the terminal. If I type startx, it says no screens found. I think it's because I set the wrong driver. I have a cirrus logic vid card, but I bet that it's looking for more recent cards. After all debian 3.0r1 is a 2002 release.

I think I have to reinstall again using just a generic VGA or SVGA driver. It does SVGA, I know that for sure, I played Terminal Velocity at SVGA. That's a tight DOS game. Runs great on my 486.

In fact, it's saturday, maybe I'll get a few games on a zip disk and just DOS the night away ... ever heard of ZZT by epic megagames? If you haven't check it out, it's an ASCII-based game that's very addictive. I still play it! I played that on my PS/2 286! 2Mhz, 4MB RAM, 30GB HDD, 9" monitor, double-density 1.44 disk drive, and an external 5 1/4" disk drive that was enormous, about 1.5' x 3" x 1'! Good times.
 
Old 04-06-2003, 03:06 AM   #14
orange400
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Quote:
Originally posted by Crashed_Again
I can't believe you got X to run on a 486. You should feel lucky that its working at all. I don't think running X on a 486 is recommended. Thats why your running into all these issues.
lol nope, not working yet.
 
Old 04-06-2003, 10:03 PM   #15
e0n
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orange400, i would really like to see some pictures of your 486 and some notes on how u built it with Meccanos.. id like to do the same with my old duron 700.
 
  


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