Linux People - your help is needed

fantomfreq · #1 (**permalink**) 23rd May, 2005, 09:07 PM

Today my mother was going through a couple closets in the house to organize things. During her cleaning spree she found.... literally found a computer. It's a laptop that my dad used for work years back; it was put away and forgotten. Anyway, I'm going to install linux on this computer as a basic way to learn the OS. So, I need some suggestions on what distribution of linux to install on such an old computer, where I can get them, etc. Free distros of linux would be ideal but I wouldn't mind paying a little money. Remember that I have not used linux before, so a 'beginner' distro may be best. Oh, and if this computer is so slow that it's not even worth doing this project with, tell me.

The specs are:
Toshiba Tecra 8000
PII 333 Mhz
256 MB of RAM
I forgot to check the drive but I'm sure it has ample space for an OS

GrahamGarside · #2 (**permalink**) 23rd May, 2005, 09:56 PM

Linux scales onto anything, unlike windows, bloat is optional, in fact it should run quite comfortably with 256mb of ram
I'd recomend either fedora core or mandrake to start with, slackware and debian are worth considering for older hardware but aren't as quick to grasp.

http://distrowatch.com/

Kaitain · #3 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 02:18 AM

Debian. Most binary distros now do suffer from quite excessive bloat since the distributors have tried to make things look as pretty as Windows, and have performance to spare...

bossa · #4 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 04:29 AM

Damnsmall linux can run on a 486 with 16mb ram . Has all the basic apps

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Kaitain · #5 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 04:42 AM

Good find!

bossa · #6 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 05:06 AM

Mepislite has just been released on its test phase .MEPISLite is similar to SimplyMEPIS, except that some packages have been changed to improve performance. MEPISLite is being developed in response to user requests for a version of MEPIS that is optimized for machines designed for Windows 98.

http://www.mepis.org/node/6634

dsio · #7 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 05:41 AM

Not fedora, not mandrake, not SuSE. Keep that in mind. The old school toshis have incedibly small hard disks by the way, so dont expect much more that 3Gb. I would imagine 6GB would be at the absolute outside for one of those.

Nice amount of RAM in it though. Definately not base model.

fantomfreq · #8 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 07:00 AM

I'm downloading a few different distros right now. So far it's up to: Damn Small, Slackware and Mandrake. I guess Mandrake is too big now so it's just the former two. I booted the computer back up again: the hard drive is 6 GB, which is more than I expected of it really. I wouldn't be surprised if the company my father works for upgraded the drive to give the computer a bit more lifeblood.

Two questions:
1) These distros are all coming in .iso format. However, these disk images are not mounting in OS X (which I can understand.) How do I burn these to a disk?

2) Will DSL or Slackware support a Wireless NIC card? There was a D-Link DWL-650+ in the PCMCIA slot and it would be a nice extra to get this thing connected to the network.

Kaitain · #9 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 09:17 AM

Mandrake will be too big and will run like tar in the arctic, so I'd stick with the others. Also do give debian a look though it's slightly less beginner-friendly.

Two answers:
1) Generic instructions for other OS (you can translate it to Mac instructions):
a) Open your favourite CD burning utility (Nero, k3b, xcdroast etc)
b) Make sure a blank disc is in the burner (you've no idea how often I forget this)
c) Select from the relevant menu "burn image". Alternative is "burn ISO".
d) Once it's burned, shove it in the victim's drive, boot/reboot it, not forgetting to set the bios to boot from CD.

note) on machines that old, boot from CD may not be available. If this is the case, shout for instructions on making a Linux boot floppy.

2) According to Absoval your card uses a Texas Instruments ACX111 chipset. D-Link are notorious for swapping parts about though, so the only way to find out is to interrogate the hardware. Windows System Information will help here. If it's a TI chipset, this is the opensource driver. http://acx100.sourceforge.net/

You can have a native linux driver for anything other than broadcom or realtek chipsets. In those cases, you would use ndiswrapper http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/

Most modern distros (kernel 2.6.x) will have wireless support. DSL might have stripped out wireless support to save space, in which case a kernel recompile with an extra couple of options is in order.

fantomfreq · #10 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 05:09 PM

I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to get that Damn Small distro working. I was ok with it seemingly not having the ability to partition the drive, but it seemed to have real problems with my hardware. Anyway, slackware is currently installing (I'm keeping my fingers crossed) so expect lots of stupid questions in the coming hours.

dsio · #11 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 05:47 PM

Slack is actually a quite good distro. Very thin and originally designed for use with the apache server, so its one of the more classical and reliable versions of linux. Ive had some quite good experiences with slack, so I have a feeling things might go well for you. Slack also picked up my netgear MA521 (Realtek 8180 chipset bastard of a wireless card) and its the only linux distro to ever do it, so it certainly gets credit for that.

fantomfreq · #12 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 06:04 PM

Gah! I think I installed slack on my laptop, but I can't get it to boot right.

I partitioned the drive into one partition as I wasn't quite sure what to do about a swap partition. I installed everything, including the kernel, on the computer. Then it restarted and I set the bios to boot from the HDD. However, whenever I do that it asks me to insert a system disk and press any button. Pressing a button does not work. I can boot from the disk still and see that there IS a partition setup at /dev/hda1 but I can't seem to access that partition. Is there some way to boot up to the hard drive from the disk? Gah, this is pissing me off.

Kaitain · #13 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 06:25 PM

Do you know whether it installed Grub or LILO as the bootloader?

EDIT::: read your message properly. OK the slackware installer has not actually set your bootloader up properly. First up, it sounds like it has not made the partition ( /dev/hda1 ) active, meaning it hasn't set the bootable bit. Next up it probably hasn't actually written the bootloader to the discs MBR. If it wrote to a partition header, then it hasn't pointed the MBR to it.

We can fix this, however. When you boot your slack installer CD, is there an option to go to console instead of through the installation script?

If so, you'll need to have answered my first question, then we can proceed

fantomfreq · #14 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 06:37 PM

I'm not quite sure what you mean by going to console instead of though the installation script. Do you mean like a command prompt? I believe I can enter commands, and there is some sort of menu for installation.

EDIT: Instant messaging is probably faster than posting on a forum. My AIM screenname is Fantomfreq. I'd gladly accept any help on my problem.

Kaitain · #15 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 07:24 PM

Yeah, that's exactly what I mean - the "command prompt". (Really it's a console, just M$ thought the former sounded more PeeCee).

OK so you've got the means to enter commands. This instantly beats Mandrake's installer. Right, now can you tell me which bootloader you had installed? Either the installer told you, or you can look for the executable:

Code:

root@kalium kaitain # which grub
/sbin/grub
root@kalium kaitain # which lilo
which: no lilo in (/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin)

Using the which command clearly informs me that I have grub installed and not lilo. If neither is available, then you probably don't have them. To be sure:

Code:

root@kalium kaitain # find / -iname '*grub*'
root@kalium kaitain # find / -iname '*lilo*'

is a basic "find files".

If you don't have either installed, I would recommend grub in preference as it's easier to use. Go back into your installation menu and ask to install grub. Maybe Slack's site has a howto on this.

If you have it/once it's installed, then:

Code:

root@kalium kaitain # grub
// some grub copyright info

grub> root (hd0,0)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> setup (hd0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
 Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...  16 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
 Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded
Done.

grub> quit

I've included the output. You enter the commands after the grub> pointer.

Then create a file using an editor - emacs or nano are easiest. You're on your own with vi.

Code:

root@kalium kaitain # nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf

Your file should look something like this:

Code:

default 0
timeout 8
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /kernel-2.6.11-gentoo-r9 root=/dev/hda2 vga=0x317

If you're using lilo, then first you create the config file /etc/lilo.conf

Code:

boot=/dev/hda             # Install LILO in the MBR
prompt                    # Give the user the chance to select another section
timeout=50                # Wait 5 (five) seconds before booting the default section
default=gentoo            # When the timeout has passed, boot the "gentoo" section

image=/boot/kernel-2.6.11-gentoo-r3
  label=gentoo            # Name we give to this section
  read-only               # Start with a read-only root. Do not alter!
  root=/dev/hda3          # Location of the root filesystem

Then run lilo

Code:

root@kalium kaitain # /sbin/lilo

I'd join you on AIM but it's 1:30am here and I have only 4 hours left to sleep.

fantomfreq · #16 (**permalink**) 24th May, 2005, 08:37 PM

I got it all up and running!! The help was great, but the problem was very (stupidly) simple: the MBR thought that Windows was still installed. Once I fixed that problem, everything works great. I can boot the computer, it will login to root and I know one command so far: startx to get KDE up and running.

Are there any sites that feature basic linux tutorials or maybe even a book that does something like that?

Kaitain · #17 (**permalink**) 25th May, 2005, 02:06 AM

OK your next basic command:

Code:

useradd

You should really avoid using root, and definitely never use root and X together. As you know, Macs disable their root by default - there's very good reason for this.

Use it like this

Code:

useradd -m -G users,audio,wheel -s /bin/bash fantomfreq

to create a user with access to audio and the ability to su to root (wheel). Different distros have different groups but those are fairly standard.

Now give the new username a password so that you can log into it.

Code:

passwd fantomfreq

It prompts you to enter the password twice, and will probably complain about easily cracked passwords. Now log off with the "exit" command and log back in as your new unprivileged user.

Whenever you need to do something that need root level access, use the command "su" or the command "sudo" should also sound familiar.

dsio · #18 (**permalink**) 25th May, 2005, 04:00 AM

Also su back to your username when you are done. I had an occasion where my apache box was su'd to root, then left like that with the console open. Took a mate's kid with an understanding of the "init 0" command to cause me a great deal of grief.

su, then password.

do what you do, then su (name) to go back.

the su command is commonly thought to be "super user" and only change to the root user, but it is also used to change between users. su on its own implies root.

Silly and obvious as it sounds now, it might save your life one day lol