Newbie questions, only 2.
 

Hello, I have an old Fujitsu Siemens laptop (192 MB RAM 677 MHz Celeron). I have a 2 questions, for now. . .

When I install Tiny Core Linux Distro from CD to HD all is working well. Also the Wifi dongle from Mediatek. But the mouse is uncontrollable.
Then I formatted the HD again and put Damn Small Linux on the HD. This is very nice, with the mouse working smoothly and all, but, no wifi dongle is recognized. So my first question is, how do i install a driver for the mediatek dongle? I already have 2 tar.bz2 files which would be the drivers, and i read some how to, to install, but ./configure gives me no such file or directory. make gives me command not found. When I unpack the package and I type Makefile, it gives me all sorts of errors. Also sudo su or not same errors.

Now I was used to Mint for example and when i plugged in a drive i could go to a filing program and see the drive. This is not so easy when i try to get it in damn small linux. I can mount the drive, but then i do not know where i can go to see the files and directories on the drive. Like typing E: (haha) does not work. So second question, how can i do this correctly.

If someone could point me in the right direction it would be very helpful.
Oh and I have no internet connection (yet) with the laptop so i am not apt-getting anything.

Thanks in advance.

When you untar a package, it expands to a directory. Inside it, you should see a README or INSTALL file which will tell you exactly how to proceed. It's better to follow these instructions than to rely on generalised ones that you got off the web.

To mount a plug-in drive, you usually use the mount command. I seem to remember that Mint mounts exchangeable drives automatically when you plug them in, but dsl probably doesn't. Usually these things are mounted somewhere under /media, for example /media/usb. It's important to note that Linux does not locate files under drive identifiers like Windows C: or E:. Instead you use mount to mount a drive on an empty directory, and the files go into that directory tree. So if, for example, a memory stick was mounted on /media/usb, files on it would be reached by /media/usb/filename. You need to know the drive designation to actually mount it, but once it is mounted, you can forget about all that.

If you want to try a more useful (in my opinion) alternative to TinyCore, seek out Puppy Linux "2.14x Classic Pup" version. I ran it for years on a laptop with almost the same exact specs as yours, a 1998-era ThinkPad 600E, PII, 192 MB RAM and 6 GB hard drive. I installed Puppy in "frugal" mode (see their documentation for details, or get back to us here if you're interested)

Cheers !

Rick

Member response
 

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

If you want to use su and have the roots environment then you must use; 'su -';Your errors from just using 'su' and attempting 'root privileges' are due to not having roots environment with path.

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!
:hattip:

May not be fully up to date.
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/f/forum-2-26-0-0.html

Well I downloaded the puppy linux v2.4x and did a full install. The only thing is, that my mouse pad is very difficult to navigate. It opens all sorts of programs when I travel with the mouse over the desktop. And no Mediatek Wifi dongle can be found. But it looks nice though.

So now my quest is to get the touchpad to work properly and to find out if I can get this MediaTek Wifi Dongle to work. Could someone help me figure it out?

First I think I need to identify the hardware somehow, but this is something completely different then i am used to do with nixi i think... I will search the forums, but if anybody could point me to the right direction it would be appreciated.

Hey Jinux75,

Search the Puppy Classic Pup 2.14x forum (used to be hosted on murga-linux - valuable resource ...) for synaptics. This has been a while, but I seem to remember having to create a config file to get the laptop's point-stick to behave properly. It is likely the same issue for your touchpad. I seem to remember that there was an alternate module for touchpads.

Hello Rickkk,

thanks, i will do that right now.. .. hmm 440 topics with synaptics in the puppylinux forum, i will be busy for a while

AAAhhhhhhh
 

Puppy does the same as tiny core with the mouse pointer it is uncontrollable, pitty. Only tiny core does work with the mediatek u7601 wifi dongle.
So now i got to fix 2 problems, the wifi dongle and the synaptics thing. I think i better quit puppy. I keep reading i need to: make and/or make install and install, but all these commands are not valid not in puppy not in tiny core not in dsl. So the graphic user interface looks really nice with the volkswagon on the background but when i open the console it does not look like a real terminal to me. I need to learn so much. There are so many different kinds of linux i am getting crazy. I have tried to read noob newbie beginner tutorials but it seems like there are also differences in what commando's that can be used for certain things. I am almost ashamed that i do not seem to get a grip of how it all seems to be working. I think i need to follow a professional course before i go and ask stupid questions in this great forum. I thought i could learn this my self, but getting the basics of from the internet is the hardest thing because there are so many different kind of solutions. There is no right way it seems. Well okay, when using Linux Mint for a while it was easy, but when trying to navigate thru the command line and all these different distro's it suddenly is very hard and i feel like a dumb someone who can not even copy a file from one directory to another. This make it less fun and i need the fun to be in it otherwise i can not learn. So the UI's are nice but what i like to learn is how to navigate in a terminal.

So my first idea is to figure out how the structure of directories is made up after installing. /bin /boot /dev /etc etcetera and lookup what they mean and what is in it... Yes i guess i am the newbie of newbies ;-(

Directories:
/boot: files used for booting
/etc: system configuration files
/bin: essential user commands
/sbin: essential administrator commands
/lib: essential libraries
/usr/bin: less essential user commands and applications
/usr/sbin: less essential administrator commands
/usr/lib: less essential libraries
/usr/share: static information shared between programs (e.g. icon sets, documentation, time zone data)
/usr/include: library headers for building software
/var: dynamic information shared between programs
/var/log: system logs
/home: users' home directories
/dev: device files (virtual files that provide an interface to hardware drivers in the kernel)
/sys: hardware information provided by the kernel
/proc: information on hardware and running processes provided by the kernel
/tmp: temporary files belonging to programs
/run: temporary files belonging to the system which disappear on shutdown.

Ooh thanks Hazel, this is handy :-)

I now need to figure out how i can go to the different drives. I see when formatting a drive it is called, /dev/sda1 so my guess is when i type cd /dev/sda1 i am on the hard drive partition 1. But also there is a /mount hmm but these directories you mentioned are very useful in my search of how the whole linux is set up and how i need to understand the way all is handled, so thanks again.

No! Read my first post again. Device names can't be used as part of the file system. They are only used when you do something to the disk itself, for example mounting or unmounting it, or using fdisk to check it for errors.

To find files on a disk you must cd to the directory where it is mounted. If you mounted it yourself by hand, you will know where you mounted it. If it was mounted automatically, you will find the mountpoint listed against the device name in /etc/fstab.

In Windows, each disk is an island filesystem, so you must know what disk a file is on to find it. In Linux, all mounted disks form a single filesystem. You find a file through its directory path. Users who aren't administrators don't even need to know whether a branch of the directory tree is a separate disk or not.

Hey Jinux75,

Never feel dumb - we were all where you are now when first trying linux. This forum is here for you - never hesitate to come here for help. You have the will to learn, the right attitude to help you do that, and a wealth of knowledge that members here will happily share with you.

Let me check what chipset is used in your Mediatek USB WiFi dongle and get back to you ... Puppy just sometimes requires that you install a package to support certain things.

Ok thanks, but I gparted the hdd and am live cd-ing now with tiny core. Only that i have internet. . . but i can always do puppy again or what ever. No i am figuring out how to use swapfile=sda2 but then it says there is no usb drive, but in gparted sda2 is the second partition on the sda. Which used to be hda but they changed that to sda and i must be very careful to not mistake and know what drive is what otherwise i instal it on a usb. I have only one usb and that is fitted with the wifi dongle. but hey i will get there somehow.

So in the system configuration directory /etc there would be a filesystem table i am guessing fstab means, and there would be all the directories which are actually different drives(filesystems)? I am now on a live cd of tiny core and i have mounted the hda (sda) and am in /etc. I can see fstab when i ls. but when i do cd /fstab it can't cd to /fstab... hmmz oohh i see fstab is not a directory it is a file :-|

How can i see the difference between files and directories, i can see all sorts of colours pink, blue, mint greem white and so on. I just cd something and when it says can't cd to something i assume it must be a file... and always the words permission denied.

I'll get there i have loads of time to figure it out. Thanks for the help it is much appreciated.