[fangorn]

I'm a Linux virgin, but a computer programmer, so I like to think I'll figure this out. I have a Fujitsu Lifebook 635T from college that has Windows 95 on it. I'd like to use this computer as a web station in my kitchen. Don't want to bother with Win95 anymore, so it was suggested to me to load Mandrake Linux. I've downloaded and made CDs of Mandrake 10.

My questions are:
I don't wish to keep anything on the drive. Do I format the drive first (it's a 1.35 GB, 1 partition drive)? Or do I just let the Linux setup boot from the CD and go for it? Any words of caution or advice? I've read several laptop linux load articles, but these didn't really answer my fear of the unknown, heh. Suffice it to say, I'm prepared to lose the computer. So may the force be with me....

[Dapper Dan]

Hi fangorn and welcome!

I don't like Mandrake 10 for a variety of reasons, although Mandrake in general has positives for your particular application. With Mandrake, you can truly do a minimal install that will come within the limitations of your drive. A lot of the other distros have a harder time doing that.

Since you only have a 1.35 GB Hard Drive, I wouldn't waste time trying to create a home partition. I would just go with a root partition and a swap space, consequently, I'd let Mandrake do the partitioning for you.

Mandrake has the most intuitive and easy to use partitioning utility I've ever used, so you shouldn't have any problems. When you start adding packages, pay attention to how much drive space the install will need.

Mandrake also includes IceWM, which is a minimal and very fast Windows manager/D.E.. The IceWM interface is also a lot like Windows 95! I use IceWM every day. Although Gnome and KDE are very good D.E.s, they may be too bloated for your box but install them if you can manage it.

Also, since you're new to this, be prepared to maybe have to try a couple of times before you get it right. Since you aren't concerned about keeping anything on your drive you have nothing to worry about!

You will learn a lot in the process. I recommend using ext3 or reiserfs as your file system.

What hardware will you be running?

[fangorn]

Quote:

I recommend using ext3 or reiserfs as your file system.

So I guess that will be an option during the setup.

Hardware, I guess you mean externals? I will have a mouse, but I hope to use the laptop screen and keyboard. This is my optimal hope.

Mandrake was suggested to me for the reason you stated - I can load a minimal "custom" setup. And in this case, I really only need a web browser...and ethernet too.

So should I format the drive and just wipe it out? As you say, I'll learn alot, but I really don't want to keep win95 around. I've heard so much about Linux being more secure and seeing as how the main point of this machine will be a web browser, I don't want Microsoft security hassles - on an obselete OS no less!

If this goes well (no reason to think it won't), my goal is to set up a linux web server. I have a Win2k web server at work running apache, but would rather run Linux.

Thanks for you reply!

[danleff]

This system can have a max of 80 mb of ram, correct?

16 mb onboard and 64 top added. This is partially what Dapper Dan is getting at also. So, as he suggested IceWM will run well on this much ram. You really would have 64 mb tops, as video shares 16. You may be able to reduce this in the bios if needed.

The install will guide you through the partitioning stage, just let it take over partitioning for you and choose your filesystem type. Do a minimal install with IceWM.

I also just installed Libranet (it is being offeed as a free unlimited trial) in my CTX lappy system (64 mb ram and 8 shared video onboard = 72 total). It only has a minimal hard drive install of 600 mb and requires 32 mb ram for the install, but does better with 64. I was very impressed with it on this limted system.

[damienb2003]

Im a newbie as well. Installed Mandrake 10.

You can have a functional operating system off of the first CD. I did get a little confused with the partitioning step during install but i think i was more worried about losing what was on my other HDD. Once i worked it through my thick skull that i was viewing the Hard drive B partition... hit Clear/Delete and started a fresh.

Second time round with install took about 25 minutes.

Damien

[Dapper Dan]

fangorn, how are you presently getting on the Internet with Windows 95? Are you plugged directly in with a cable? 56k or DSL? Are you using a pc card with a router, or directly connected to a modem?

You may also want to go with a real minimal fast browser. I would recommend links-graphic. It's not as full featured as Mozilla or even Firefox, but it gets up and going very quickly and is lightening fast on the Internet. For mail, you may want to look at Balsa or Sylpheed which I believe are already included with Mandrake 10. All of these are smaller packages and use up less resources than the major Linux browsers and mail programs.

[fangorn]

I don't have this laptop on the network yet. So I will be buying a pcmcia NIC. It will be a cable internet connection, pcmcia card using a router. Should I get this working with Win95 before I load linux? I'll keep links-graphic in mind, thanks dan.

I did try to load Mandrake last night. When I'm in Win95 and try to run CD1, it brings up the setup screen, but when I hit install Mandrake, it prompts me to hit OK to reboot and when I click the button - nothing happens. So then I changed my boot sequence and booted from the CD. After loading the BIOS and then trying to read the CD, the loading hangs. So tonight I'm going to try loading from floppy. Hopefully making the boot floppy is easy.

[fangorn]

Well. I made an install floppy, put the floppy and the CD in their drives and rebooted the machine. The floppy did boot and the mandrake install started, but it can't recognize the CDROM. I'm not sure what to do. It asks me if I have an Additional Drivers floppy, but I don't. I'll have to see if this CDROM has a linux driver, but tracking that down and then what if it does, I don't know. We'll see what happens.

[Dapper Dan]

fangorn, I think danleff can help you with this. Wait till he gets on the board, and I'm sure hell be able to point you in the right direction.

[Dapper Dan]

Bump for danleff

[danleff]

Ok a couple of possible issues I can think of.

Forgive the brief response, as I am getting ready for a work related trip for Thursday and Friday.

First, how were the cd's burned? On cdrw media or cdr media. At what speed were the iso images burned? Older lappy's sometimes do not like cdrw media burned on modern cdrw drives.

If I remember right, Mandrake 10 had a quirk in the booting/install process.

There is also a problem with 24X cdrom drives booting install cd's properly. I just had this problem on my lappy. Switched from a 24X to a 20X drive and all went fine.

Is the cdrom a 24X or 20X drive?

If you burned the cd's at 4X or 8X (no faster), then attempt a boot from cd, using the second Mandrake cd (yes, NOT the first install cd). You will get a message that this is not an install disk. At this time switch the cd to the first Mandrake install disk. Hit enter on the keyboard and see if ther install starts properly.

ISO images need to be burned at a slow rate, no faster than 8X and cdr disks work much better.

Booting into Win 95 and starting the Mandrake install by rebooting will not work. So try booting from the second Mandrake cd directly and follow the steps outlined above. Let us know what happens.

[fangorn]

Hey, thanks danleff. This CD writer I'm using is several years old. I'm pretty sure the CDs were burned at 12x and the CDs are cdr. I will burn them again at 8x or slower and see what happens. I'll post back either way. Thanks!

[fangorn]

Alright, here are my findings:

The CDs I burned were burned at 8x. I tried booting with the 2nd disc. I didn't get the message that says "this is not an install disk". I tried booting from both the first CD and the second CD, both got me to the point where it prints out the hda: messages and then starts the setup and I hit enter to install or upgrade and it then says "searching for cdrom (cd-38e)" - it even knows what kind of cdrom it's looking for.

I listened each time and can confirm that when it is searching for the CDrom, the CD spins up, but then spins down and ~20 seconds later a message appears saying "I cannot find a mandrake linux install cd".

So then I burned disc 1 and 2 at 4x speed and got the same results.

So then I looked online somemore and found a suggestion to hit F1 to go into options (when the second CD goes to setup) and hit alt1 to load kernel 2.4 instead of 2.6. I tried this with the same results I've been seeing.

I'm so close though. When I look at the kernel messages I see:
<4>hdc: ATAPI 8x CD-ROM drive, 128kB cache, DMA

So then I get the idea (which may be what you were getting at danleff and I'm just dense) to boot with CD2, but when it asks "install from cdrom"; I changed the cd to CD1 before hitting enter. This still didn't work.

I don't know what else to do. Is anyone familiar with MandrakeMove? Would this give me what I need (just a browser connected to the network)? Any other suggestions for this laptop? Does anyone know of a laptop that is known to work with Mandrake and maybe is a few years old so it's not too expensive?

[Dapper Dan]

fangorn, as I told you, I'm not a big fan of Mandrake from 9.1 till 10, but am very big on Mandrake 9.0. It's very stable from the get go, and the install goes without difficulty. If going on the Internet is all you're wanting to do, maybe it's the way to go. A big plus is that it's an older version, and may like older hardware better.

Here's a good fast mirror where to get the ISOs to make the two installation disks if you're interested. Download the bottom two before the md5sums which is last...

[fangorn]

Thanks Dan! Downloaded those 2 iso's, burned the CD's at 4x. Used the 2nd CD to boot from. Got the "this is not an installation disk" message like you said. Now, I'm installing Mandrake Linux 9.0. Thanks alot for all your help.

How can I find out which PCMCIA NICs will work with this install and this hardware?

[Dapper Dan]

fangorn. I'm a big fan of the Orinoco Gold Card since it is one of the first PCMCIA cards that worked with Linux. You really can't go wrong with it, if you can be satisfied with 802.11b, which in my opinion, is PLENTY fast enough.

I've had it working under Fedora Core one, Morphix Gnome 4.1, and most recently, Mepis RC4. It, along with just about any 802.11b router, should work as well as you would want without too much of a configuration hassel.

[fangorn]

For now, I was going to use a wired connection. I went ahead and used a NIC from work (it's a 3com Megahertz 3cx-?). When I use the Mandrake Control Center, it sees this pcmcia correctly. Then I do an ifconfig and all I get is the "lo" interface (loopback). I do not get an eth0 even though I've gone through the network wizard in MCC and it says "configuring eth0". When I do an ifup eth0, I get the message "device or resource busy". So then I do a dmesg and I see the messages "eth0: could not reserve IRQ 0". I even went into the /etc/pcmcia/network config file and put "exclude irq 0" in line with the other excludes.

How can I tell this PCMCIA driver to load on a different irq?

[fangorn]

For now, I was going to use a wired connection. I went ahead and used a NIC from work (it's a 3com Megahertz 3cx-?). When I use the Mandrake Control Center, it sees this pcmcia correctly. Then I do an ifconfig and all I get is the "lo" interface (loopback). I do not get an eth0 even though I've gone through the network wizard in MCC and it says "configuring eth0". When I do an ifup eth0, I get the message "device or resource busy". So then I do a dmesg and I see the messages "eth0: could not reserve IRQ 0". I even went into the /etc/pcmcia/network config file and put "exclude irq 0" in line with the other excludes.

How can I tell this PCMCIA driver to load on a different irq?

[Dapper Dan]

I'm afraid this one is over my head, sorry. danleff would you have any ideas on this?

[Dapper Dan]

Another bump...