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Hello all,

I am a windows user who is fed up with using 'appropriated' software so I've
decided to go open source. My friends tell me that Slackware is the way to
go so I want to test it on an older machine of mine.

The floppy drive doesn't work, so I have to make it go using the
instructions on the Slackware site (installation FAQ #11). However, after
following these instructions, I get the message "Uncompressing Linux... Ok,
booting the kernel." and then it hangs...

The command used in the dos prompt was:

C:\LOADLIN\loadlin bzimage rw root=/dev/ram initrd=color.gz load_ramdisk=1

Not knowing what the root and load_ramdisk switches do makes me think that
the problem may lie there.

Any thoughts?

If I have left anything out, or if this is a common problem and I've simply
not looked hard enough for an answer, please advise and point me in the
right direction.

Thanks, all.

In article <Luqyb.2782$zf2.133449@news20.bellglobal.com>,
Chip Snider wrote:
> decided to go open source. My friends tell me that Slackware is the way to
> go so I want to test it on an older machine of mine.

You've got smart friends. How old is the machine?

> The floppy drive doesn't work, so I have to make it go using the
> instructions on the Slackware site (installation FAQ #11). However, after

Most things at that site are out-of-date, but you hit on a good one
there. The FAQ for this group has much better and up-to-date resources.
AFAICT Pat only maintains the front page, www.slackware.com.

> following these instructions, I get the message "Uncompressing Linux... Ok,
> booting the kernel." and then it hangs...

Errors at this point usually indicate a CPU incompatibility with the
kernel. Is this a 386? Pat dropped 386-compatibility after 8.1. If you
have an especially small hard drive you might want to go back to 4.0. I
did run 8.1 on a 386 for quite some time, however, so it will work. But
some 386-era hardware (I'm thinking of old IDE controllers) might not
work with drivers which have become standard.

> C:\LOADLIN\loadlin bzimage rw root=/dev/ram initrd=color.gz load_ramdisk=1
>
> Not knowing what the root and load_ramdisk switches do makes me think that
> the problem may lie there.

No, that command line looks correct (assuming your kernel and color.gz
are in the current directory.) Oh, maybe part of the problem is with
color.gz; I think the file you need in later releases is called
isolinux/initrd.img. That file itself is too big for a floppy, so you'll
have to figure out a DOS way to split it. (I think pkzip can do it.)

> If I have left anything out, or if this is a common problem and I've simply
> not looked hard enough for an answer, please advise and point me in the

There's another thread about an old machine which started a few days
ago: "swap space" or something like that.

We'll need more detailed information about the hardware and the
Slackware version you're using.
--
/dev/rob0 - preferred_email=i$((28*28+28))@softhome.net
or put "not-spam" or "/dev/rob0" in Subject header to reply

Thank you for the quick response!

To answer your questions, it's a Pentium-S 100MHz processor with 32mb
RAM and I currently have three small hard drives in it; 400mb, 800mb and
1.2Gb respectively.

It also has an LG/Goldstar 8x CD-ROM and a Linksys NIC (the model of
which I cannot remember off the top of my head, but it is only a year or
two old.

Right now, the machine is running Windows 95, and I have Netscape 4.x
running on it so it can access the internet if I need something that is
not in the Slackware 9.1 CDs.

I'll give the initrd.img angle a shot and let you know if it works or if
I have any other issues.


-chip




/dev/rob0 wrote:
> In article <Luqyb.2782$zf2.133449@news20.bellglobal.com>,
> Chip Snider wrote:
>
>>decided to go open source. My friends tell me that Slackware is the way to
>>go so I want to test it on an older machine of mine.
>
>
> You've got smart friends. How old is the machine?
>
>
>>The floppy drive doesn't work, so I have to make it go using the
>>instructions on the Slackware site (installation FAQ #11). However, after
>
>
> Most things at that site are out-of-date, but you hit on a good one
> there. The FAQ for this group has much better and up-to-date resources.
> AFAICT Pat only maintains the front page, www.slackware.com.
>
>
>>following these instructions, I get the message "Uncompressing Linux... Ok,
>>booting the kernel." and then it hangs...
>
>
> Errors at this point usually indicate a CPU incompatibility with the
> kernel. Is this a 386? Pat dropped 386-compatibility after 8.1. If you
> have an especially small hard drive you might want to go back to 4.0. I
> did run 8.1 on a 386 for quite some time, however, so it will work. But
> some 386-era hardware (I'm thinking of old IDE controllers) might not
> work with drivers which have become standard.
>
>
>>C:\LOADLIN\loadlin bzimage rw root=/dev/ram initrd=color.gz load_ramdisk=1
>>
>>Not knowing what the root and load_ramdisk switches do makes me think that
>>the problem may lie there.
>
>
> No, that command line looks correct (assuming your kernel and color.gz
> are in the current directory.) Oh, maybe part of the problem is with
> color.gz; I think the file you need in later releases is called
> isolinux/initrd.img. That file itself is too big for a floppy, so you'll
> have to figure out a DOS way to split it. (I think pkzip can do it.)
>
>
>>If I have left anything out, or if this is a common problem and I've simply
>>not looked hard enough for an answer, please advise and point me in the
>
>
> There's another thread about an old machine which started a few days
> ago: "swap space" or something like that.
>
> We'll need more detailed information about the hardware and the
> Slackware version you're using.

Chip Snider <chip.snider@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Thank you for the quick response!
>
> To answer your questions, it's a Pentium-S 100MHz processor with 32mb
> RAM and I currently have three small hard drives in it; 400mb, 800mb and
> 1.2Gb respectively.
>
> It also has an LG/Goldstar 8x CD-ROM and a Linksys NIC (the model of
> which I cannot remember off the top of my head, but it is only a year or
> two old.
>
> Right now, the machine is running Windows 95, and I have Netscape 4.x
> running on it so it can access the internet if I need something that is
> not in the Slackware 9.1 CDs.

If you have 9.1 CD, then just boot with that. Next option is to boot
with floppy; but, yours doesn't work. Third option is put your harddisk
into some other box, and after installing, move it back.

--
William Park, Open Geometry Consulting, <opengeometry@yahoo.ca>
Linux solution for data management and processing.

okay - here's an odd one - I tried to boot from the second CD to see if
that would work and the loadlin command had a parameter that struck me
as interesting...

ramdisk_size=16384

that was the only thing that was really different about booting from the
CD so i tried inserting that into the prevously stated command and
voila! it worked... up until the login screen.

here, it says:

Welcome to Linux 2.4.22 (tty1)

(none) login:


no matter what I type, all that I get is that prompt again, in it's
entirety.

any thoughts? am I just too new to Linux to know what to do here? I
thought if i typed root, it would ask for a password which i could
either leave blank or type 'null' or something. but no, it just doesn't
like anything.

thoughts?

if this is another thing that can be easily solved, i apologize... I
know how easy it is to find answers if you know where to look - i guess
i just don't know.


thanks guys/girls,


chip



Chip Snider wrote:

> Thank you for the quick response!
>
> To answer your questions, it's a Pentium-S 100MHz processor with 32mb
> RAM and I currently have three small hard drives in it; 400mb, 800mb and
> 1.2Gb respectively.
>
> It also has an LG/Goldstar 8x CD-ROM and a Linksys NIC (the model of
> which I cannot remember off the top of my head, but it is only a year or
> two old.
>
> Right now, the machine is running Windows 95, and I have Netscape 4.x
> running on it so it can access the internet if I need something that is
> not in the Slackware 9.1 CDs.
>
> I'll give the initrd.img angle a shot and let you know if it works or if
> I have any other issues.
>
>
> -chip
>
>
>
>
> /dev/rob0 wrote:
>
>> In article <Luqyb.2782$zf2.133449@news20.bellglobal.com>,
>> Chip Snider wrote:
>>
>>> decided to go open source. My friends tell me that Slackware is the
>>> way to
>>> go so I want to test it on an older machine of mine.
>>
>>
>>
>> You've got smart friends. How old is the machine?
>>
>>
>>> The floppy drive doesn't work, so I have to make it go using the
>>> instructions on the Slackware site (installation FAQ #11). However,
>>> after
>>
>>
>>
>> Most things at that site are out-of-date, but you hit on a good one
>> there. The FAQ for this group has much better and up-to-date resources.
>> AFAICT Pat only maintains the front page, www.slackware.com.
>>
>>
>>> following these instructions, I get the message "Uncompressing
>>> Linux... Ok,
>>> booting the kernel." and then it hangs...
>>
>>
>>
>> Errors at this point usually indicate a CPU incompatibility with the
>> kernel. Is this a 386? Pat dropped 386-compatibility after 8.1. If you
>> have an especially small hard drive you might want to go back to 4.0. I
>> did run 8.1 on a 386 for quite some time, however, so it will work. But
>> some 386-era hardware (I'm thinking of old IDE controllers) might not
>> work with drivers which have become standard.
>>
>>
>>> C:\LOADLIN\loadlin bzimage rw root=/dev/ram initrd=color.gz
>>> load_ramdisk=1
>>>
>>> Not knowing what the root and load_ramdisk switches do makes me think
>>> that
>>> the problem may lie there.
>>
>>
>>
>> No, that command line looks correct (assuming your kernel and color.gz
>> are in the current directory.) Oh, maybe part of the problem is with
>> color.gz; I think the file you need in later releases is called
>> isolinux/initrd.img. That file itself is too big for a floppy, so you'll
>> have to figure out a DOS way to split it. (I think pkzip can do it.)
>>
>>
>>> If I have left anything out, or if this is a common problem and I've
>>> simply
>>> not looked hard enough for an answer, please advise and point me in the
>>
>>
>>
>> There's another thread about an old machine which started a few days
>> ago: "swap space" or something like that.
>>
>> We'll need more detailed information about the hardware and the
>> Slackware version you're using.
>
>

> Chip Snider <chip.snider@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>> To answer your questions, it's a Pentium-S 100MHz processor with 32mb

This most likely would work with bare.i. I can't imagine why it does
not, except ...

>> Right now, the machine is running Windows 95, and I have Netscape 4.x
>> running on it so it can access the internet if I need something that is
>> not in the Slackware 9.1 CDs.

.... I remember hearing a lot of horror stories about old versions of
Netscape mangling downloads, like doing automatic transparent
decompression of gzip'ed files.

Loadlin has a test or debug mode, in which it does a dry run without
actually booting the kernel. You might want to try that.

In article <bqdt88$21r3sf$1@ID-99293.news.uni-berlin.de>, William Park wrote:
> If you have 9.1 CD, then just boot with that. Next option is to boot

I doubt many P100's supported booting from CD. I think the ElTorito
standard was just hitting the market around that time.

> with floppy; but, yours doesn't work. Third option is put your harddisk
> into some other box, and after installing, move it back.

The loadlin option should work too, as long as it's the loadlin from
recent Slackware releases. The one with 8.0 and earlier will not boot
today's large kernel images.

Of course if the issue is of kernel incompatibility with the hardware,
none of these options will work. But that sounds less likely at this
point.
--
/dev/rob0 - preferred_email=i$((28*28+28))@softhome.net
or put "not-spam" or "/dev/rob0" in Subject header to reply