To make sure, none of the old problems move along with the new method (not really 'new', just a different list of directions), i decided to wipe the HD clean and start from scratch. I successfully comleted the SL installation... did all the extra stuff listed at the bottom too (even though i dont really know what i added). But... this doesnt change the fact that I cant view my Slackware root disk. I'll try using the older text.gz later tonight.

Older text.gz produces the same result... i swear, this damn thing doesnt like to read any slackware boot/root disks. It's nice to know these last 3 weeks have been all for NOTHING.

Anyone know if any other distributions that can support an old 486 laptop with 4MB of ram, 400MB of HD space, a floppy drive, and no cdrom? I've just about had it with slackware, and this stupid SmallLinux doesnt have enough useful commands to keep it around on its own.

Since they have a compressed file system (gzipped) they must be mounted like this:
mount -o loop -t ext2 /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
The older color and text may need minix file system instead of ext2 (-t minix)
This is for root disks not boot disks.
Didn't you say you had gotten ZipSlack running?

That might be it.

Also, though not linux I did get NetBSD installed with 4mb ram as well (v1.3?).

I just re-loaded zipslack... which means this is my current layout of partitions:

/dev/hda1 - SmallLinux - 40MB - (boots automatically if no bootdisk is present)*
/dev/hda2 - swapspace - 12MB
/dev/hda3 - DOS partition - 120MB - (currently where ZS/Loadlin is located)

(*-I only kept it cause it's small and makes good linux partitions)

How do I get the zipslack on it's own... so that it can boot up by itself w/o DOS?

I tried it... but it says: mount: could not find any device /dev/loop#

Use your lowmem boot floppy to boot your ZipSlack. First, also unzip the fourmeg.zip onto the same partition. This will increase the size of the swapfile in /root. Or, since you have a swap partition, you could edit fstab before running ZipSlack and change the entry for the swapfile so that it points to your swap partition instead.
at the boot: prompt enter this:
mount root=/dev/hda3 rw

i'm having trouble copying the files (as it says to do in the FAQ for zipslack). I got stoppped at while trying to sbin copy over to the clean (i reformated it) hda1... (i did clean out the whole hard drive and changed the current sizes if each partition... as of now it's:

hda1 - 100MB - Where linux will be - 83 linux native
hda2 - 28MB - swapspace - 82 loinux swap
hda3 - 100MB - where zipslack is now - fat 16 (dos paritition)


The error i get is:
cp: cannot create regular file/symbolic link '/mnt/(file)': Read-only file system

I've tried mounting the hda1 with -o rw, but it only last a few files (if it even works)... then all the files just say the error.

Is your swap partition formatted and activated? If not, while running Zipslack do this:
mkswap /dev/hda2
swapon /dev/hda2
This may help.
Also, try using cp -avx instead of cp -a for copying

it still says that it's a read-only file system. how do i change it so i can copy the last 4 folders (sbin, temp, usr, and var)?

i take that last post back... i was finally about to copy all the necessary files & folders (base on what the FAQ file says i needed). Now, for some reason, i cant mount the partition (from boot).

I get : Warning: unable to open an initial console.

You mean you are unable to boot ZipSlack now?

this is what i've done:

1)First i booted up SmallLinux and made 2 paritions & formatted them:
/dev/hda1 - 100MB (temp root)
/dev/hda2 - 32MB (swap)
2)Next i booted up DOS (7.1) and created a partition for ZipSlack:
C: 100MB [no name] Fat16
3)I transfered Zipslack onto the laptop and extracted the files.
4)I use Loadlin, and mount /dev/hda with read-write protection.
5)I transfer the necessary files (the ones stated in zipslack's FAQ.txt) to /dev/hda1 and edit fstab in the new etc in /dev/hda1.
6)I boot up (using lowmem.i bootdisk) and have it mount root being /dev/hda1...

--Warning: unable to open an initial console.--

I've tried booting with both the boot disk & loadlin... and both say the same thing. the smallLinux boot disk says something slighty different... but it locks up just as well.

I can still mount /dev/hda1 if i boot up SmallLinux using the disks, or if i boot in Dos and run loadlin.

It will boot OK with loadlin? I'd try booting that way and then run liloconfig so that it will boot with lilo from MBR.
when you run loadlin, which kernel are you using. zipSlack has it's own kernel already installed. If you are booting successfully with the ZipSlack kernel, then parhaps you could use the zipslack bootdisk to boot with. Still, if you can boot any way at all, try installing lilo.

What i meant was that if i booted up with SmallLinux's boot AND root disk... or if i used DOS & zipslack's loadlin to boot and choose the dos partition(/dev/hda3) as root.... i could mount /dev/hda1 as /mnt after having logged on. And i switched the zipslack/loadlin kernel to lowmem.i (i just renamed it vmlinuz).

What i'm trying to do now is boot using /dev/hda1 as root... and i've tried the only 3 boot methods i have (the Slackware boot disk, the Zipslack boot from DOS, and the SmallLinux Boot disk), but they all give me the same error.

I'm guessing i have to go into a file or something and edit it... but i dont know where to start. I already edited the fstab & mtab files so that they now have /dev/hda1 in them. What else is left?