Has anyone else had this problem? I've recently acquired a Tiny Mediabook (UK
supplier, appears to be very similar to Mitac 8355), but it refuses to boot
from either a cd or dvd prepared in accordance with the readme in the isolinux
directory.

The computer detects the cd, issues a message about starting a non-emul boot,
then hangs solid! The cd / dvd works fine on every other computer I've tried
it on.

The only changeable options in the bios are boot device and date / time!
*Nothing* else is adjustable! And other than "Made in China", there is no clue
as to the original manufacturer to locate a bios update! However, it appears
to use the Via K8T800 + VT 8235 chipsets.

Naturally, being a new machine, it doesn't have a floppy drive, so as far as I
can see its going to be a bit tricky to get Slack installed.

I managed to install Suse-9.1 (amd-64 version), but it ran dog slow and very
cranky - clearly very unhappy about something - but I have found Suse's
debugging tools (such as they are) almost impenetrable!

Checking a few other cds / dvds, it will boot suse 9.1 install, but not the
live cd. It will boot Mandrake 10 -rc1 (amd-64 version) and knopppix 3.4.

It won't boot slackware install disks or slax.

It will boot win xp provided lilo hasn't been installed! As long as grub, or no
bootloader is there it boots. Put lilo on the hard drive, and it doesn't! No,
I don't understand that, either! (That one made it a pig to fix the
boot-sector....!)

What is slack doing that is different to suse or mandrake, and how can I fix
it?

Does slack perform some kind of memory check before installing ramdisks for the
install, and could this be causing problems?

And please Patrick, can we have a 64 bit version? Please?

--
Pete
christy@NOattglobalSPAM.net
(make the obvious amendments to reply!)

On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 16:28:23 +0000, Peter Christy wrote:

> Has anyone else had this problem? I've recently acquired a Tiny Mediabook (UK
> supplier, appears to be very similar to Mitac 8355), but it refuses to boot
> from either a cd or dvd prepared in accordance with the readme in the isolinux
> directory.
>
Is your box this one? Look here:
http://www.ckloiber.com/

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In alt.os.linux.slackware, Peter Christy dared to utter,
> What is slack doing that is different to suse or mandrake, and how can I fix
> it?

See if Slackware-8.0 will boot on your machine. Newer versions of
Slackware use isolinux to boot. That's the way most things are going
these days, but for "will-boot-on-anything" you should use good old
floppy emulation like is done with 8.0. If 8.0 will boot for you, then
we know it's a problem with isolinux and we can go from there.

> And please Patrick, can we have a 64 bit version? Please?

He's not here.

- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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Alan Hicks wrote:

> See if Slackware-8.0 will boot on your machine. Newer versions of
> Slackware use isolinux to boot. That's the way most things are going
> these days, but for "will-boot-on-anything" you should use good old
> floppy emulation like is done with 8.0. If 8.0 will boot for you, then
> we know it's a problem with isolinux and we can go from there.

Gosh, I think I threw all the old disks out a few weeks back....! I'll have to
do some digging, see if I've still got it somewhere....

Good thought though!

>> And please Patrick, can we have a 64 bit version? Please?
>
> He's not here.

You never know! He might be lurking :-)

--
Pete
christy@NOattglobalSPAM.net
(make the obvious amendments to reply!)

The Real Slim Shady wrote:

> Is your box this one? Look here:
> http://www.ckloiber.com/

I can't access that site! I get messages that I should be using https instead
of http, and when I do it throws me out!

--
Pete
christy@NOattglobalSPAM.net
(make the obvious amendments to reply!)

On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 10:20:41 +0000, Peter Christy wrote:

> The Real Slim Shady wrote:
>
>> Is your box this one? Look here:
>> http://www.ckloiber.com/
>
> I can't access that site! I get messages that I should be using https instead
> of http, and when I do it throws me out!
You're right. It's blocked now. The page was working yesterday.
I took it from here: http://www.linuxtx.org/amd64faq.html

The Real Slim Shady wrote:

> You're right. It's blocked now. The page was working yesterday.
> I took it from here: http://www.linuxtx.org/amd64faq.html

Have a look at

www.amdboard.com/athlon_64_notebook.html

The 8355 is shown part way down, as a Mitac device, but they also mention (in
the small print) Tiny as a UK supplier.....

I see there is a note about installing Debian on the Mitac version - I'd better
go look at that, as there might be some relevant info......

--
Pete
christy@NOattglobalSPAM.net
(make the obvious amendments to reply!)

Alan Hicks wrote:

> See if Slackware-8.0 will boot on your machine.

Yes, it does! It comes up with a warning on the first line:

"isolinux: Failed to get sector size, assuming 0800"

but it *does* boot!

So where do we go from here?

BTW, I've also discovered that the latest versions of Acronis Partition Expert
and True Image (Partitioning and partition imaging programs) won't boot
either! Neither have they responded to e-mails about it yet! Nice to see
commercial giants can get caught out just like the rest of us......!

Thanks for the ingenious diagnostics tip! I would never have thought of trying
such an old disk to boot from!

--
Pete
christy@NOattglobalSPAM.net
(make the obvious amendments to reply!)

On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 13:49:07 +0000, Peter Christy wrote:
> So where do we go from here?

Go directly to the motherboard manufacturer and kick up a fuss about
the buggy, inadequate BIOS they sold you. For an AMD64 board to have
incomplete ElTorito support, after all these years, is disgraceful.

Talk to the Acronis folks and tell them why their CD won't boot. Ask
them to join you in applying pressure.

In the meantime here's your workaround: use the 8.0 CD to do a minimal
install to a partition (which you can change the role of later.) Copy
the 10.0 isolinux/initrd.img and appropriate kernel into this
partition, edit your lilo.conf to boot it with appropriate options
(which you can find in isolinux/isolinux.cfg), run "lilo".
--
/dev/rob0 - preferred_email=i$((28*28+28))@softhome.net
or put "not-spam" or "/dev/rob0" in Subject header to reply

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In alt.os.linux.slackware, /dev/rob0 dared to utter,
> In the meantime here's your workaround: use the 8.0 CD to do a minimal
> install to a partition (which you can change the role of later.)

It's been a long time since I used 8.0, but couldn't you just copy its
isolinux directory in place of 10.0's and build the iso? Would that
work?

- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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