"Can't access tty, job control turned off"-Sony p2 laptop
 

I am trying to install Linux on an old P2 Sony laptop PCG N505SN which has 128mb of memory.

I have tried Puppy, Kubuntu and antiX (plus gparted live, SystemRescueCD).

I am trying to install over an existing XP system (i.e delete XP). The CD spins up okay, but after a short while the CD stops spinning and I get a message, “Can't find file system” and/or “Can't access tty, job control turned off”. I get this message with every CD. The burns are correct since the CDs have been used elsewhere and worked perfectly.

It may be that the Sony CD Rom (plug in CD51) is faulty, as suggested by one or two people, but how do I test it other than by substitution? It plays audio CDs fine.
The USB stick route is out since there is no provision for it in the BIOS boot order.

Any suggestions please?

I suspect your CD drive is defective.

Your memory is low (and that suggests your hardware is old, and therefore your CD drive is OLD [and dusty, with worn-out bearings etc.])

If "minimal" distros like puppy will not boot, you may be out of luck.

If your "plug-in" CD-ROM has failed, then borrow another. It's probably not worth buying a new one.

New / replacement / repaired drives for a laptop may cost more than a new or refurbished laptop.

The CD-ROM may work for music, but because the player will have error-correction you'll maybe hear a little click, but this will not work for data CDs: They'll fail.

tredegar,

I think that you are probably correct regarding the CD rom drive being defective. An experienced pc specialist running his own computer repair shop suggested pretty much the same thing.
I am awaiting delivery of a tried and tested replacement unit.
Fingers crossed!

tredegar,

Unfortunately the replacement CD rom drive is giving exactly the same error messages.

Is there any other option to try or should I just call a halt and scrap the laptop?

Are there some special boot options that I could use?
I realise that I am clutching at straws now.

For the benefit of anybody who has not yet tried antiX, it is a cracking Linux Lite distro and will run with just 128mb of ram (once you have a functioning laptop or pc!)

For further info:

http://antix.mepis.com/index.php/Main_Page#News

Some thoughts:
How old is your laptop - does it have a SATA HDD? If so, see here:
http://blog.shevin.info/2007/04/how-...in-feisty.html

Or you could try this:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...24#post2923824

Maybe see if you can boot a knoppix release (famously good with awkward hardware)

Solved!!
 

tredegar,

Thanks for the info.
The Sony P2 laptop is pretty ancient, I'm afraid, with an IDE hard drive.
Keeping my fingers very tightly crossed, I think I am actually making some progress.

I remembered that Xubuntu and its variants have an option to check the CD for defects so I thought (if I got that far), I would try it.

The check showed that the CD was perfect.

I decided to use the Xubuntu 9.04 alternate install CD (text based, not graphical) since the laptop only has 128mb of ram.

I was planning to have a root partition, a swap partition and a home partition but for some reason the Xubuntu partitioner could not resize the existing single partition.
I therefore decided to keep things simple and go with the “use whole disk” option.

The installation was slow but it got there in the end. Maybe my old laptop with a small memory just cannot cope with graphical installations.
Thank goodness for text based installers and Xubuntu 9.04.

GUI installs will struggle with "only" 128MB RAM
Maybe you can add extra memory? It is cheap at the moment, and you'll notice a BIG performance increase.

This is best Linux Lite OS ever. Get SliTaz now!
 

tredegar,

You are right about adding extra ram. This is somebody else's old laptop and he does not wish to spend any money on it (probably a very good idea).

In any event, this has been a very illuminating exercise. I have learned quite a bit about several Linux Light OSs and I have made the important discovery of SliTaz 2.0, all 29MB of it!!

It took all of 61 SECONDS to download and about the same again to burn to CD!

Load the Live CD, press Enter to boot, then select your language, keyboard and screen resolution. The last one is important. I chose the wrong one initially and wondered why I could not not find a Menu etc.

Then go:
Menu > System Tools > SliTaz Installer.
Username is tux and password is root.

More information here:

http://www.slitaz.org/en/

Download from:

http://www.slitaz.org/en/get/

Screenshots:

http://www.linuxinfusion.com/slitaz-20-screenshot-tour

EDIT
To get the Mail client, Sylpheed, go to Terminal (as root) and type:

tazpkg get-install sylpheed