I can run DSL on my old Compaq Armada laptop but I'm not having any success getting it to recognize my Netgear wireless PC card, and the only reason I'm spending time with this old laptop is to use it at a cyber cafe. A member of another forum suggested that I try Puppy Linux which will also run on an old machine with an old, slow processor (Pentium 1) and only 128 MB of RAM, and see if I have better luck getting it to recognize my wireless PC card.

I downloaded and burned a Live CD of Puppy Linux. I have burned Live CDs before and know about the ISO image file, so I think I did the burn correctly. But when I boot the laptop with the Puppy CD in the CD drive, I get the following message:

Error, cannot fine Puppy on 'cd' boot media.
PUPMODE=1 PDEV1=
Exited to initial-ramdisk (initramfs) commandline...
(the Linux-guru can now debug, 'e3' editor is available)

/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

So I downloaded and burned a fresh CD and now I get the message:

Looking for Puppy files in computer disk drives...pup_301.sfs not found. Dropping out to initial-ramdisk console...


/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

What am I doing wrong?

Can you try the CD in a different PC? DId you check the MD5 on the downloaded iso?

Thanks larkl. Rather than spend time trying to get the download right I found a fellow who sells Live CDs on eBay very cheaply. I purchased a Puppy Live CD for only $1.79+$1.50 S&H = $3.29! He has 100% positive feedback and is quite knowledgeable about Linux, so I trust that the CD I bought on eBay will work.

I'm still going to have to configure that NDISwrapper thing, but with the help of the good folks at this forum I think I can get it to work.

Thanks.