Linux assistance please!
 

Probably aimed at FL 310, but can anyone offer suggestions for the following, please?
I am now on my > 20th attempted install of Linux!! Just as well I was made redundant :) I have tried both SUSE and Red Hat. The attempts proceed as far as starting to configure X11 (for SUSE) or Xfree86 (for Red Hat). The SUSE install fails because both keyboard and mouse operations cease and the computer totally freezes. (during the installation prior to this, the mouse installation fails, no matter which option I select). The Red Hat install fails during the Xconfigurator attempt to install an appropriate video card. (every selection I make - even generics - are shown as 'server nor recognised') Interestingly, the mouse is both recognised, and operates correctly, in Red Hat.
The installation is being made onto 'clean' partitions, properly formatted for Linux as /root, /usr and a swap file. The machine is a 'bitsa' which had some initial hardware problems which have now been resolved - P 166, 48 Mbs RAM and a 2.1 Gbs H/D. This same hardware installs W 98 without a whimper, so, presumably, is OK. I suppose I could just use the Red Hat version as a command line system but I would rather like to explore the GUI versions as compared with the dreaded Windoze. :confused:

CJ, I tried to email FL 310 via Prune as I needed some info from him, it looks as he disappeared, cannot find his profile anymore.

CJ

I found this site fairly useful a while back. Hope this helps

http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/howtolinux/

There are a lot of net sites available with this information which are pretty good. This one was a four pager which attracted me somewhat.

The graphics card is the problem most probably: X-Window may not support it. The easiest thing to do is to NOT install X-Window during the redhat/suse install.

Then once the machine *is* installed, you can find a guide to manually troubleshoot X-Window.

I'll just bet it's some weird graphics card no-one's ever heard of.

I have just read my book on installing RedHat 7.1, and the recommended min Hardware is a Pentium II 300Mhz or equivalent (Celeron 360 works ok): 64 Meg of ram: 2GB Harddrive: 14" Monitor (SVGA) [ The GUI looks good on this or bigger]: SVGA Video Card with 2Meg Memory: CD Rom of any sort.

This info leads me to think that both your processor and video card are both just below the requirements. I guess you may just have to scrunge around and upgrade your junker a little.

By the way I am in the process of building up a junker myself to put linux on yet again. ( The Kids dont like me playing on my computer it restricts their chat time).

Any way I hope I have given some help towards solving your dilema.

:) :D

I would say it's your VGA card. Do you know what type it is?

7.3 Redhat has loads of XFree86 drivers and also has both versions of X - 3 and 4 so it may well be that it supports your card a little better than 7.1

As mentioned above, do a normal install without X then once you get to a command prompt type "setup". (At least that's what I do in Redhat 7.3).

You can then start X from the command line by typing either "init 5" or "startx" at a superuser prompt.

If it fails just try adjusting the driver again and repeat the process.

Have a look at your video card and see what chip is on it (eg it could be an S3 Virge based chip). Post your answer back and I'll see if I recognise it.

Can you also detail your mouse (eg make /model / PS/2 or serial etc)?

Cheers

X under Linux
 

I'm not a Linux user myself, preferring FreeBSD or NetBSD (which both support XFree86), however that should be pretty similar for XFree86 on Linux.

First of all, I would second Dagger Dirk

---8<-----
The graphics card is the problem most probably: X-Window may not support it. The easiest thing to do is to NOT install X-Window during the redhat/suse install.

Then once the machine *is* installed, you can find a guide to manually troubleshoot X-Window.
---8<-----

Definitely! Once the base OS is installed OK, then start on X :-)

---8<-----
I'll just bet it's some weird graphics card no-one's ever heard of.
---8<-----

Possibly -- there are an awful lot of permutations of video cards out there, and as it says in the docs., a "Wibble-32" card and a "Wibble-32/a" card may appear to be very similar, but can, in fact, be about as different in hardware terms as you can get.

Can you post details of what video card you've got, and I'll see if I can help further.

Ha, GE beat me to it :-)

My word! What a response! Many thanks gentlemen (and ladies, if any). On reflection, methinks Avtrician may well be on target. It's a 2.1 Gb H/D, 48 Mbs RAM and a P 166. I was, perhaps, lulled into the belief that Linux was a low end hardware spec OS. This as against, for instance, Win 3.1 which I ran on a 386 with 8 Mbs RAM (believe it!!) and an 80 MEGabyte H/D.
The mouse problem seems odd since it works perfectly with W 98, W 3.1, Dos 5 and 6 and OS2 Warp, on the same machine. The graphics card I would have thought was pretty mainstream being a Creative Blaster Eclipse - which is listed in the Red Hat setup but not in the SUSE.
Anyway, I have decided to try a change of direction back to an old favourite OS - OS2 Warp. Anything to get away from Windoze for a while. :D
I have a second H/D on the machine (SCSI 4.5 GBs) so I may try a triple/quadruple boot system with Linux, OS2, Dos and, maybe BEOS. That should keep me out of mischief for a while.

Meantime, while trying to convert CDA files to WAVs via NERO Media Player, I got the following informative text in W 98. "The WinASPI file'?.?' can't be found, therefore you can currently select only image recorders. The missing file is part of the Windows 95'98/ME files. Please fix this problem and restart." "Error 15 (mismatched components)" A similar message appears if I try to open Nero Burning. Device Manager shows the CD as working correctly and there are no associated exclamation or question marks. Given that the error message is of the usual helpful Windows variety, does anyone have any idea what this is all about, please? (I have, of course, re-installed both W 98 and Nero Burning with no improvement.)

DSP - sorry mate!!! Great minds must think alike :D Not bad timing for either of us!

Cornish Jack:

You're right in that Linux can be "trimmed down" to run on virtually any machine..... I've got systems that are still running on old 486 DX33's!

The later versions of (eg) RedHat have much more power-hungry kernels plus generally install a lot of bloat onto your hard disk.

The answer is to start with a very minimal installation, stop all the services you don't need and then work on seriously trimming down the kernel to take out everything you don't need.

What you end up with is a lean, mean machine with a kernel that you can easily fit onto a floppy disk if you're frugal!

I'd give it another go if you could drag yourself away from OS/2 - check out RedHat 7.3 and use an ultra fast window manager like ICEWM or Blackbox. If you install OpenOffice and Mozilla's latest, plus possibly Sylpheed for your email you will have a jolly smart setup!

Cheers

GE

Thank you General Electric. Will give that a go but since W 98 is throwing its toys out of the pram on my other machines I foresee much midnight oil burning to get them sorted , so may be a while. :mad:
Rgds

*nix on a small box...
 

I think that GE and I must be vitual clones of each other... :)
[ GE, you don't work for a well-known ISP based down there, do you ? :p ]

Cornish Jack,

I'm sure that its not a basic HW performance issue. Like GE, I have had FreeBSD running on very low-spec boxes (though admittedly I didn't try running X on a 486 ;-) ) My central server at home is a "paltry" P-166 with 64Mb RAM and a 4GB system disc (more for user data, obviously) -- and this box really rocks (for my needs, anyway) :)

For interest, you may like to know that the SmoothWall (www.smoothwall.org) Linux-based software firewall/router will quite happily run on a P-75 with 8Meg of RAM -- that was the only box a friend had available, and it runs fine.

Back to your system, you may want to upgrade the memory to 128M if you can, but otherwise it should certainly have enough grunt to run Linux (or try FreeBSD, www.freebsd.org :D )

Creative Blaster Eclipse
 

is listed as being supported in the XFRee86 documentation. All the Creative cards listed are supported by the XF86_SVGA server.

"Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice, quite forgetting her grammar"