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lothario 02-05-2011 03:30 PM
update/upgrade an old Debian laptop
 
Just dusted off this really old laptop. Its working!

It has Debian installed with the following hardware:

2 PCMCIA cards
pcmcia card 0 is a network card = eth0: 3Com 3c589, io 0x300, irq 3
pcmcia card 1 is a SCSI card = scsi0 : Adaptec 152x SCSI driver

This scsi0 card has 2 SCSI devices attached
(scsi0:1:0) Vendor: iomega Model: jaz 1GB
(scsi0:5:0) Vendor: PLEXTOR Model: CD-ROM PX-6XCS

I would like to install a newer, smaller, faster, lightweight linux distro on this laptop.
For quick web searching, email and messaging.

I don't know how to make this laptop boot off this SCSI CDROM drive.
Is it possible to change the grub menu so that it boots off the SCSI CDROM?
How do you do that?
Doesn't Debian have to boot first to make the its pcmcia drivers work?

sycamorex 02-05-2011 03:45 PM
The boot device/order is usually specified in BIOS. Can you enter BIOS when you start the computer?
How old is this? What version of Debian is it? I guess upgrading it would be out of question, wouldn't it?

lothario 02-05-2011 04:11 PM
I am going to reboot the laptop in look at the BIOS.
In the meantime, here are some snippets from dmesg ...
Code:
Linux version 2.6.18-6-486 (Debian 2.6.18.dfsg.1-18etch1) (waldi@debian.org) (gcc version 4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)) #1 Sun Feb 10 22:06:33 UTC 2008
...
...
Yenta: CardBus bridge found at 0000:00:0a.0 [0e11:b047]
Yenta: Using CSCINT to route CSC interrupts to PCI
Yenta: Routing CardBus interrupts to PCI
Yenta TI: socket 0000:00:0a.0, mfunc 0x01c01d22, devctl 0x64
Yenta: ISA IRQ mask 0x0698, PCI irq 11
Socket status: 30000010
Yenta: CardBus bridge found at 0000:00:0a.1 [0e11:b047]
Yenta: Using CSCINT to route CSC interrupts to PCI
Yenta: Routing CardBus interrupts to PCI
Yenta TI: socket 0000:00:0a.1, mfunc 0x01c01d22, devctl 0x64
Yenta: ISA IRQ mask 0x0698, PCI irq 11
Socket status: 30000010
pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0
pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 1
input: PC Speaker as /class/input/input1
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
...
...
pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia0.0
pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia1.0
eth0: 3Com 3c589, io 0x300, irq 3, hw_addr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
  8K FIFO split 5:3 Rx:Tx, auto xcvr
SCSI subsystem initialized
aha152x: resetting bus...
aha152x0: vital data: rev=1, io=0x340 (0x340/0x340), irq=4, scsiid=7, reconnect=enabled, parity=enabled, synchronous=enabled, delay=100, extended translation=disabled
aha152x0: trying software interrupt, ok.
scsi0 : Adaptec 152x SCSI driver; $Revision: 2.7 $
(scsi0:1:0) Synchronous Data Transfer Request period = 200 ns offset = 8
  Vendor: iomega    Model: jaz 1GB          Rev: J.86
  Type:  Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
(scsi0:5:0) Synchronous Data Transfer Request period = 200 ns offset = 8
SCSI device sda: 2091050 512-byte hdwr sectors (1071 MB)
  Vendor: PLEXTOR  Model: CD-ROM PX-6XCS    Rev: 1.00
  Type:  CD-ROM                            ANSI SCSI revision: 02
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 39 00 10 08
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back w/ FUA
SCSI device sda: 2091050 512-byte hdwr sectors (1071 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 39 00 10 08
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back w/ FUA
 sda: sda1
sd 0:0:1:0: Attached scsi removable disk sda
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 0x/0x caddy
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
sr 0:0:5:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
sd 0:0:1:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
sr 0:0:5:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 5
...
...
eth0: flipped to 10base2
eth0: no IPv6 routers present
eth0: coax cable problem
eth0: flipped to 10baseT
eth0: flipped to 10baseT

sycamorex 02-05-2011 04:17 PM
It looks like you're running Debian Etch, which stopped being supported just this month (edit: Actually 1 year ago - I still think it's 2010:)!
Here's how you could upgrade it:
http://www.debianadmin.com/howto-upg...-lenny-50.html

Upon a successful upgrade, you could choose some lightweight desktop environment / windows manager to speed up things.

lothario 02-05-2011 04:27 PM
sycamorex, Thanks for the info.
I am going to try that.

In the BIOS, there is no option to boot from the PCMCIA card(s).

About the Debian upgrade, I am wondering ...
There is no built-in ethernet port on the laptop.
Will the current 3Com 3c589 pcmcia card still work (supported?) after the upgrade?

lothario 02-05-2011 04:50 PM
I followed the upgrade instruction in the above link.
When I issue the "aptitude update" command:
Code:
aptitude update
Get:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release.gpg [1033B]
Get:2 http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release.gpg [835B]
Get:3 http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release [40.8kB]
Get:4 http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release [73.8kB]
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release       
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release     
Get:5 http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Packages [343kB]
Get:6 http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Packages [5193kB]
Get:7 http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Sources [89.3kB]                                                   
Get:8 http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Sources [2310kB]                                                             
Fetched 8052kB in 2m27s (54.5kB/s)                                                                                     
Reading package lists... Done
W: GPG error: http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 9AA38DCD55BE302B
W: GPG error: http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 9AA38DCD55BE302B NO_PUBKEY 4D270D06F42584E6
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
So I did
Code:
apt-get update
Get:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release.gpg [1033B]               
Get:2 http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release.gpg [835B]     
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release       
Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release
 
Err http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release
 
Get:3 http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release [73.8kB]
Get:4 http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release [40.8kB]
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release                 
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Sources/DiffIndex
Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Packages
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release
Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Sources
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Sources/DiffIndex
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Packages
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Sources
Fetched 116kB in 4s (27.6kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
W: GPG error: http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 9AA38DCD55BE302B
W: GPG error: http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 9AA38DCD55BE302B NO_PUBKEY 4D270D06F42584E6
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
What should I do now?


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