Hardware trouble: Installing slackware/X Windows on a Compaq LTE Elite 4/75CX
Hi,
Ok, this is really two problems or rather one problem being caused by another. (I'm trying to install slackware to be able to use X). Has anyone else had experience of installing slackware onto one of these old laptops? I'm having a lot of trouble regarding installation and X windows. This laptop doesn't have a built-in cdrom, so I'm using a PCMCIA cd-rom drive to try to install from (I don't have a network I can install from at all, nor a network card). So far, I've tried installing slackware 7,8,9 and 10. I Can get slackware 7 and 8 to install ok, but X windows dosen't work properly on both 7 or 8. Slackware 7's version of X refused to start (always saying something like "no screemodes found" - it did this no matter what setup I used or which chipset I selected from xf86config's list); slackware 8 only works at 320x200 (!). I've tried to install slackware 9 and 10 (in the hope the newer versions of X being used on these versions of slackware might work), but slackware 9 and 10 don't recognise the PCMCIA cd-rom drive. (NB, I think the vga chipset for this laptop might be a western digital chipset, but I have no way of finding out (according to compaq's website, it has a Western Digital WD24A2 for vga)). When trying to install slackware 9 or 10 I use the PCMCIA floppy from slackware (bare.i, install.1, install.2 and pcmcia.dsk). Apon typing "pcmcia" at install, the pcmcia disk loads up and the cdrom's light comes on and the drive makes a sound (the cdrom spins up), but yet setup cannot ever find the PCMCIA cdrom drive (also mount /dev/hdg /cdrom fails). Under slackware 7 and 8, the PCMCIA cdrom drive is seen on /dev/hdg . Here's the output of "dmesg" for slackware 9 (after using the bootdisks): <---- Linux version 2.4.20 (root@midas) (gcc version 3.2.2) #2 Mon Mar 17 22:02:15 PST 2003 BIOS-provided physical RAM map: BIOS-e801: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable) BIOS-e801: 0000000000100000 - 0000000001800000 (usable) 24MB LOWMEM available. On node 0 totalpages: 6144 zone(0): 4096 pages. zone(1): 2048 pages. zone(2): 0 pages. Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=vmlinuz ramdisk_size=7000 root=/dev/fd0u1440 vga=normal rw SLACK_KERNEL=bare.i Initializing CPU#0 Console: colour VGA+ 80x25 Calibrating delay loop... 37.37 BogoMIPS Memory: 21212k/24576k available (1733k kernel code, 2976k reserved, 568k data, 112k init, 0k highmem) Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok. Dentry cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes) Inode cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 2, 16384 bytes) Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes) Buffer-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes) Page-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes) CPU: After generic, caps: 00000003 00000000 00000000 00000000 CPU: Common caps: 00000003 00000000 00000000 00000000 CPU: Intel 486 DX/4 stepping 00 Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK. POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au) mtrr: detected mtrr type: none PCI: System does not support PCI Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4 Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039 Initializing RT netlink socket Starting kswapd VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_6.4.0 initialized Journalled Block Device driver loaded pty: 512 Unix98 ptys configured Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with HUB-6 MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI enabled ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31 ide: Assuming 50MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx hda: HITACHI_DK222A-54, ATA DISK drive ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 hda: 1058432 sectors (542 MB) w/64KiB Cache, CHS=525/32/63 ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide Partition check: hda: hda1 hda2 Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M FDC 0 is a National Semiconductor PC87306 RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 7000K size 1024 blocksize loop: loaded (max 8 devices) ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00 kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2 kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2 kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2 md: linear personality registered as nr 1 md: raid0 personality registered as nr 2 md: raid1 personality registered as nr 3 md: raid5 personality registered as nr 4 raid5: measuring checksumming speed 8regs : 24.000 MB/sec 32regs : 12.800 MB/sec raid5: using function: 8regs (24.000 MB/sec) md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27 md: Autodetecting RAID arrays. md: autorun ... md: ... autorun DONE. LVM version 1.0.5+(22/07/2002) NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0 IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP IP: routing cache hash table of 512 buckets, 4Kbytes TCP: Hash tables configured (established 2048 bind 4096) NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0. VFS: Insert root floppy disk to be loaded into RAM disk and press ENTER RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0 VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem). Freeing unused kernel memory: 112k freed usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs usb.c: registered new driver hub usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 15:38:38 Mar 11 2003 usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver uhci.c: USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v1.1 usb.c: registered new driver keyboard usbkbd.c: :USB HID Boot Protocol keyboard driver usb.c: registered new driver hiddev usb.c: registered new driver hid hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz> hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice usb.c: deregistering driver hiddev usb.c: deregistering driver hid usb.c: deregistering driver keyboard usb.c: deregistering driver usbdevfs usb.c: deregistering driver hub Unable to identify CD-ROM format. Linux Kernel Card Services 3.1.22 options: [pci] [cardbus] [pm] isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards... isapnp: No Plug & Play device found Intel PCIC probe: VLSI 82C146 ISA-to-PCMCIA at port 0x3e0 ofs 0x00, 1 socket host opts [0]: none ISA irqs (scanned) = 3,4,5,7,9,10,11,12,15 status change on irq 15 VLSI 82C146 ISA-to-PCMCIA at port 0x3e4 ofs 0x80, 1 socket host opts [1]: none ISA irqs (scanned) = 3,4,5,7,9,10,11,12,15 polling interval = 1000 ms cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: excluding 0xc10-0xc17 0xc60-0xc6f cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x08ff: clean. cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x100-0x107 0x378-0x37f cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean. cs: memory probe 0x0d0000-0x0dffff: clean. floppy0: unexpected interrupt repl[0]=45 repl[1]=0 repl[2]=0 repl[3]=d4 repl[4]=0 repl[5]=1 repl[6]=d4 ----> Thanks SP |
I googled 'Compaq LTE Elite 4/75CX linux', and found a hobby site (http://www.geocities.com/dueze/compaqlte475.html) where the guy posted his XF86Config. However, that write-up is for Slack 7.1; but you might as well try it for Slack 10.
Also, check out the linux-on-laptops section for Compaq: http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/compaq.html To install a newer version of Slack, try removing your hard drive from the laptop, slaving it to a desktop (with CD drive) then copy over the contents of the install CD to the notebook drive. Leave out the packages that you don't intend to install (eg. KDE, Gnome etc). Create a boot floppy, replace the notebook drive into the Compaq. After you reboot, mount the notebook hard drive and run the setup program from there. You might also be interested in MiniSlack. |
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