Slackware 12 install won't boot on 430TX 233 mhz laptop
 

I've tried both huge.s and hugespm.s

Now I checked the MD5 values on the iso, I cannot check them after burn since I'm on windows. I did try a burn at 8x which was what I remember doing back awhile to get ISOs to burn properly for my Sega Saturn.

I'd like to blame the disc drive in the laptop (oh boy would I ever), but it seems like it's fine. In fact I just got netbsd i386 installed on it. Though that installer may be less finicky than slack? Though my burner did produce one netbsd coaster, so I wonder if my real issue here is the burner (validating one image with nero 8 brought up a few inconsistencies).

Alternatives? It doesn't have it's own Ethernet port, and I imagine digging out my Ethernet card for it probably won't work from an FTP install. I have wifi, but again that won't work from an FTP install, right? It's not going to let me run madwifi is it?

I guess I could pop the disk into my computer and partition part of it to hold the Slackware 12 install files then boot from that. I'm also going to try Slackware 11 and just be happy with that(which I imagine would allow me to go to slackware 12 more easily). I'd love to hear any suggestions.

EDIT: I just tried Slackware 11 and that works, and Slackware 12 boots on my tower machine. So It's gotta be something with that craptop.

I passed 'no initdrd' and that worked, now my question is ... should that have worked?

Hi,

What hardware?

You can use the 'md5sum.exe', which is md5sum checker for windows.

If the iso md5 is ok then you should try 'CdromMd5sumsAfterBurning''.

This way you will know if the burn was OK!

This will check the download iso with the known md5sum that you also get with the iso.

You could do a ftp install using the 'lmo-install-0.2.iso', it took about 2 hours for me on DSL for Slackware 12. You should be able to ftp install with the wifi. I would prefer a Ethernet but a wireless should work but a lot slower.

These links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links' .

Yeah, but would that FTP install let me load in madwifi to get wireless on my laptop? I can't find it's ethernet card. Eitherway I think it was a combination of my laptop's drive and the varied programs I'm using to burn.

Hi,

What do you mean 'I can't find it's Ethernet card'?

I have used the lmo-install with a Ethernet without problems. As for the wifi, try it. Manfred Muller has done a great job with it.

I'm not sure if the wifi cards are detected. If I have time later then I will test it. We just got about 8-10 inches of snow and it is stalling everything here. I need to dig out my barn to get to the horses.

I mean that I literally can't find the PCMCIA ethernet card for my laptop.

I think I finally got a good burn, but it does seem like I'm going to need to replace my burner. Is there any good way to run a test on a burner to see if it's working ... other than burning loads of slackware discs I mean.

Hi,
What burn application are you using?

I was trying nero and cd burner XP. However I seem to be having the best luck with AlcoholSoft's burner now.

Hi,
Did you try slowing the burn rate and then check the burnt image md5 with the original?

Yeah, my only good burn has been produce pretty much randomly.

EDIT: and when I do get Slack 12 installed I get a "No space left on device" error.

Hi,
Have you changed your media? Is it matched to your burner? Quality of media? Manufacture?

How much space did you allocate for the '/'?

What hardware are you installing too? I've asked before.

Now most of my burns are giving fault errors on install (except that one Slackware 12) either the laptop cd drive is trashed, my media is trashed, or my burner is trashed I honestly don't care.

As for the laptop? Hardware? It's a JETBOOK, model 7050, have no idea what that is? Well that's precisely why I didn't mention it. I put out 35 gigabytes for the slackware install, that's not an issue.

As for the quality of media etc. I don't even want to delve into that, I'm not going and buying new CDRs to diagnose a problem which is most likely that I'm installing into a badly treated decade old laptop.

I'm going to give the online install of slack(if it supports wifi) a go, maybe try to put the install files on a USB and run the setup from a boot disk and if that does work I'm scrapping the Laptop. Though I have tried two different forms of media and gotten similar issues, for what it's worth.

Hi,

No wonder your having problems. The Jetbook specs. This is an old laptop. You should roll back to an earlier version of Slackware, I would suggest Slackware 10.2 to start. The max memory is 96MB with a 'Intel Pentium MMX processor 166/200/233 MHz or AMD K6 II 266/300/333 MHz mobile processors' for this laptop. Rather slow for the Intel, hope you have the AMD/333. The BIOS is probably broken (dated) and can cause you other problems.

Once you get a Slackware installed then you could use XFCE for a desktop with some success on this laptop. I use Slackware 10.2 with IBM 760 class laptops with max memory.


As for your unwillingness to follow good advice then your on your own.

I would use 'Slackware® 12.0 USB_Install' if the usb is the route you want to go.

I haven't tested lmo-installer with wifi, been busy. Don't give up so easily. If you do decide to trash the laptop then give it to a re-furbisher that will in turn prepare it for some charity.

BTW, because you switched media doesn't mean it is matched to your burner.

I had a slackware 10.2 install on it! Maybe if I can find the old disc it will run

What? It's confusing enough without needing to quest for the proper CDR format. I'd honestly rather burn 6 more coasters and deplete my supply then start weighing the pros and cons of burnable media. I never needed to determine proper media before.

Can't boot from USB. I have no idea how to mount it from ISOlinux.

lmo won't even boot on this thing, so I think that's a no-go.

Is there an actual webpage with a table that will provide me a one word answer to what media I need?

I really appreciate your suggestions here. However without some sort of exact answer (I appreciate knowing that I should stick to 10.2) I really see absolutely no harm in giving up. It installed before, it won't install now, and it's nearing the point where it's no longer worth the effort.

Hi,

You are not going to be able to install Slackware 12 on the laptop and get it working without some major work. You should use 10.2 or maybe 11. You didn't state which processor you actually have on this laptop or the amount of RAM.

You are being to general in your response and not willing to work to get to the solution.

My crystal ball is cracked therefore when I look over your shoulder everything is blurry. :) When presenting a problem on a forum you need to provide relative information. Not omitting it.

Maybe you should read ' How to Ask Questions the Smart Way or use Find Your LQ Answer'

As for the media match and some of the other questions. Do a Google or LQ search. A lot of that has been discussed on this forum has been addressed before. Maybe that is why you have a lot of problems that you are experiencing. Not researching before a problem properly. Buy any CDr and put it in a drive. Then expect it to work. :scratch:

Do some work yourself.

Good luck!

The craptop is running a Pentium processor, and it has 32 megabytes of ram, I wasn't aware that slackware's requirements changed dramatically for 12. Excuse me if I somehow doubt that when you know the serial number off my CD-ROM drive you'll be able to provide some Dr. House type of solution.

I'm asking the question in hopes that it might be a recurring problem. I'm definitely not hoping that it's a one in a million near impossible to solve problem, that we can solve once I've provided enough details.

Yeah, it is totally outrageous that I'm putting CDRs into my CDR burner and expecting the result to work. Sometimes I wake up at night in a cold sweat wondering what's wrong with me.

EDIT: I searched "media match" "matching media to my burner" etc and got nothing. If this isn't something that isn't actually documented somewhere (with a list of burners and CDR brands) I really don't want a part of it. I do appreciate your help, but throwing your hands up and asking me why I don't have CDRs that match my burner, -- erstwhile being unable to provide a simple LIST that would let me find this media -- reeks of some wild goose chase to stave off the inevitable conclusion that my issue here is actually FUBAR, and no one's giant mind is going to change that.

EDITEDIT: Aside from assuming my media are crap(they have an @ sign on them), I'm gonna go ahead and declare my burner garbage since using a different burner in the house seemed to give me a working 10.2, though I'm still waiting to see another fatal error, it seems to be chugging along at least.

Hi,

Hi,

Sarcasm is not going to get the situation corrected.
I don't need the serial number of anything but to provide adequate information is proper. If you don't know then just say so.

Each Media manufacture have different grades of media. By speed generally and type of material, QC etc. That means the rate at which the disc should meet the standards setup by the industry. You should get some background information on CD-R.


The Pentium speed along with that much RAM I would definitely use Slackware 10.2 as the distribution. XFCE would be a good choice for a Desktop.

Getting smart is not going to help you. I've provided you with direct information and valid. But thanks for comparing me to a Dr. House level of diagnostics. I enjoy the show. Maybe you should attempt to use a little of that energy in getting to know what to do to solve some of the situations you are experiencing.
The sleep problems maybe telling you something!

Apparently the information is there and you just don't know how to provide in a proper manner. A lot of what I garnished from you has opened a line to what the problem is and how to implement the hardware. Googling with the proper 'key' will get you more information. I would start with knowing what the CD-recorder manufacture you are using. Then see what is specified for that. You seem to be too general with 'keys' when searching.

Did you even read the Slackware 12.0 CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT, UPGRADE.TXT and RELEASE_NOTES?

As stated you can attempt to install Slackware 12 on this laptop but you are not at the level to even begin this endeavor that would not work in the end. I wouldn't attempt the install of Slackware 12 because of the amount of time required but use Slackware 10.2 and possibly even roll back to earlier versions if necessary. This legacy hardware will be supported with Slackware 8.1 and later up to probably 10.2. Of course increase the RAM to the 96MB the laptop supports. Read the txt files for each release to get additional information. You can look at this site.

edit: release notes ,UPGRADE.TXT, and Slackware-HOWTO for 10.2 is a start.

I just googled the drive and it looked it up on CDfreak's site, and they have a list of tested media ranked best to worst. If you knew about the site, why it couldn't just have been linked to when I said "Is there an actual webpage with a table that will provide me a one word answer to what media I need?" is really a mystery.
EDIT: And the particular brand they recommend doesn't seem to be available online. I am right now packing this laptop back up, game over man.

Somehow I assume in my history of randomly buying media from CVS and getting good installs on them, that this actually is not the problem. OTOH, I didn't buy these CDRs but asked someone if I could have them, so maybe I just need to head back to CVS.

Again, I insanely assumed they had moved that stuff to their frontpage. What a rube I am, huh? None of those documents seem to trump the frontpage requirements list anyway. I want you to tell me how possibly I should have derived that my laptop couldn't handle slackware 12, as a guy who wanted to download and install it.

The slackware 12 install disk needs 64MB of RAM for the initrd.
Slackware-8.1 will be a lot better for your machine, though anything up to 10.2 my also work. The 8.1 installer only needs 16MB RAM for the initrd.
For later versions you may need to use the install.zip installer.
Had to laugh when I saw the prices for that machine:
JI-7050-8 6.0G/96MB 2004.58

I guess/hope you got it for about 1% of that!

Yeah, I had 10.2 purring like a kitten awhile ago. However I ended up doing various things with the laptop in the meantime and am in the process of returning it to it's former glory.

It's something we bought long long long ago, and had lent out to someone for a period of a few years. So it's seen it's share of war. I think I've gotten most of what I need to do figured out with it. So I'm just gonna roll with it and take some breaks inbetween. I just let it install among all the failed packages from the badly burn CD, and I'm going to throw the stuff on the harddrive from the FTP via a USB stick then use the CD installer if it will let me.

EDIT: If it keeps being a pain I think I'm definitely going to consider picking up something cheap to replace it.

Hi,
It is humanly impossible to know every reference site!

As I said you need to learn to use google or a search engine with refined key(s). Look at the advanced search function for google, this will assist you a lot. Other search engines have similar utilities. LQ has a excellent search engine with a great reference base.

If you want to learn Slackware or any real Linux then you will need to read and dig through documentation, websites or whatever.:study: That way no 'AssUme'! :rolleyes:

You need to research the equipment that you want to use. That is unless you want a 'turnkey' like Ubuntu, fedora or whatever. But even then you cannot always expect to be able to work with legacy hardware. You then are relying on soneone else to really maintain the OS instead of yourself. When something breaks then you are out of luck.

As I said about the IBM 760 Thinkpads, with Pentium 133 and 96MB of RAM there was no problem with Slackware 10.2. Sure some tweaking but nothing exceptional. Ran XFCE when I need a Desktop but I use these for controlers therefore the 'cli' is always in use.

Hi,
Real sticker shock! Now we can get a laptop at around 2 pounds and less than $300. Asus Eee comes to mind.

Some great laptops from Dell and Toshiba for <$500.

I agree that the 81. would be a choice but 10.2 should load with his machine if he would max the memory.

I got an install by putting things on the laptop's harddrive via a USB stick, and I mostly use it for terminal work. Which is good since XFCE kind of tanks on it.

If 8.1 lowers my initial system requirements would that in turn make XFCE run better? I imagine I'm going to have problems with anything beyond fluxbox.