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.