installing to an old laptop cont'd

English Install/Boot/Login
1

so, finally got my cd to respond and have my first suse screen (yippeee!!!) but then the problems just keep coming. when i try to instlal i get the following:

…
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kernel panic - not syncing: out of memory and no
killable processes

now, admittedly, i have not enough ram (only 32), but would that be causing this problem? i thought that it would cause a slow and lethargic machine, but a kernel panic? btw, who came up with this error name? i almost panicked too!
thx in advance,
purplefool

2

with that amount of ram,you most definitely need to create a swap partition before installing

Andy

3

[QUOTE=deltaflyer44;1860102]with that amount of ram,you most definitely need to create a swap partition before installing

and what is that? i will look it up, but your opinion would also be appreciated.

purplefool

4

ok, got the information on a swap file for linux. sounds reasonable…but how do i ‘install’ one during/before installing linux? and what program do i use? just looking for shortcuts, i will be looking everything up anyway, but wanted to pick your brains too^^

purplefool

5

use a partitioning tool to create a linux swap partition,then,when installing,point the program at the swap partition to help install

Andy

6

ok, unfortunately i can’t do it that easily. like i said in my first post with an old laptop, i cannot access the hard drive and the cd drive and the floppy drive at the same time. so, making a partition is not an option that i have at the beginning.

what i would like to have is a way to format the hard drive and start from scratch…either a big magnet or a program that will do that from the floppy drive. i can’t afford the magnate, so i would like the program.

is the problem really the ram? this is a really old laptop(almost as heavy as my desktop) that struggled with win98. i don’t expect to have a perfect linux system, i just want a working one.

purplefool

7

If you want a working system with 32mb ram, Puppylinux or DSL would be your best bet,with that amount of ram. for a free partitioner that runs from floppy look here Partition Logic

Andy

8

Hi
Boot the install cdrom and select the rescue option… this will give
you a cli where you can mount and partition the drive…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.0 x86 Kernel 2.6.25.11-0.1-default
up 2 days 21:15, 1 user, load average: 1.38, 1.12, 0.61
GPU GeForce 6600 TE/6200 TE - Driver Version: 173.14.12

9

Boot the install cdrom and select the rescue option… this will give
you a cli where you can mount and partition the drive…

well, tried this but with no success. my system crashes before i can even get the kernel up and running.
do you guys know of a way to format a hard drive from a floppy? i think that that is the biggest problem that i have now. then i could partition and use other workarounds.
btw, thanks malcolm for the tip on smaller linux versions…i will be looking into them!

10

Hi
That wasn’t me…lol it was deltaflyer44

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.0 x86 Kernel 2.6.25.11-0.1-default
up 2 days 21:48, 1 user, load average: 0.06, 0.17, 0.17
GPU GeForce 6600 TE/6200 TE - Driver Version: 173.14.12

11

oops…yeah, well, guess i am more tired then i thought…:\

12

> now, admittedly, i have not enough ram (only 32)

i completely agree with deltaflyer’s “If you want a working system
with 32mb ram, Puppylinux or DSL would be your best bet, with that
amount of ram.”

and, if you would stop trying to shoe horn a very modern (and LARGE)
OS into that old machine you will be WELL on your way to meeting your
(posted) goal of “ok, just trying to pre-install linux on an old
laptop so that i can learn to use it before we install it in our office.”

i mean, if you were the office IT-Guru planning on leading the way to
switching the office to Vista, would you seriously try to put that
pig on such an old laptop, in order to LEARN?? (in the THIS
reference, you can believe that in 32 mb of ram that SUSE will oink
JUST as often!! you ain’t gonna like this pig any better than the
other, IF you get it installed, ever)…

the thing you stand to learn the MOST by what you are doing now is
how dang hard it is to install SUSE 10.2 on an antique!!

if you are not willing to try Damn Small or Puppy, my recommendation:
read these fora and supporting documentation until you know how to
SAFELY set up a dual boot…then do that on a WORK machine…that way
you will learn about Linux in the environment you are gonna use it in…

along THAT path you will eventually see that everything you are
learning now is quaint, but not so useful knowledge in a real world
environment…

ymmv, :peace:

DenverD (Linux Counter 282315) via NNTP, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14, KDE
3.5.7, SUSE Linux 10.3, 2.6.22.18-0.2-default #1 SMP i686 athlon

13

so, just so you know, i have downloaded puppylinux and installed it successfully on my system. however, my original problem still remains…how do i get rid of the windows on the system? i have 1.6gigs to play with on the hard drive and only about 500 that i can use. i screwed up in trying to take a shortcut and wound up with the windows directory deleted and the rest of the crap still there. i don’t want a dual boot, i want a clean system with only one os on it…linux. i want to use the rest of the hard drive as a kind of swap, but need to get rid of the other stuff first.
so, how do i find the files using puppylinux? right now it is grinding away at trying to read the files and i am killing time searching the net.

14

On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:36:01 GMT
purplefool <purplefool@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
> so, just so you know, i have downloaded puppylinux and installed it
> successfully on my system. however, my original problem still
> remains…how do i get rid of the windows on the system? i have 1.6gigs
> to play with on the hard drive and only about 500 that i can use. i
> screwed up in trying to take a shortcut and wound up with the windows
> directory deleted and the rest of the crap still there. i don’t want a
> dual boot, i want a clean system with only one os on it…linux. i want
> to use the rest of the hard drive as a kind of swap, but need to get rid
> of the other stuff first.
> so, how do i find the files using puppylinux? right now it is grinding
> away at trying to read the files and i am killing time searching the
> net.
>
>

Well, now that you’ve got linux on the machine… you’re in control.

Delete the windows partitions. And then, just for fun… delete the linux
partitions too!! Yup, you’re right… it’s not a good thing to do…but now
you’d have a WHOLE hard drive to play with! All clean from a partition point
of view. (yes, you’ll have to reinstall!)

You may, of course, NOT wish to instruct the machine to self-destruct in that
manner… delete the windows partition, create a linux type partition and
learn how to mount and add space in that manner. You’ve got a perfect
learning tool…

The very fact that you’ve gotten linux to boot and run on that machine is a
tremendous step forward. And I’ll be the very first to admit that I’ve
screwed up (usually) my machine a zillion times by trying things and
learning. That’s the key point. If you crash it and don’t learn… you
just wasted your time… but if you can see what you did and try not to do
that again… hooray! (be warned, there are MANY more ‘things’ to not try)

My favorite learning tool? The TAB key… try EVERY command… what commands
ARE there? Well, press ‘a’, then TAB twice… there’s a list! Try those
out… then ‘b’… TAB TAB… a new list! I can honestly say that I have at
least TRIED every command available on a linux system. Don’t do this as
root… as some commands are nasty, they shoot first, then ask… But you’ll
learn which are killers, which are not. The ‘man pages’ are great too…
find a command… type ‘man xxx’ to see the manual pages for that command
‘xxx’.

Most commands support adding either ‘-h’ or ‘–help’ to see some brief help
about their commands and arguments they support. All except ONE…

Typing ‘shutdown -h’ doesn’t do what you might expect. It starts a full
‘poweroff’ shutdown sequence. But as long as you’re not root when you type
it, it’ll fail and give you an error message. (If you’re root… well, it’s
certainly eye-opening!)

Congrats on the Puppy. Now go play!

Loni

–
L R Nix
lornix@lornix.com
ask me how I found THAT one…

15

IIRC, Puppy should have a partitioner,so you could delete the windows partition & use it to store files on.or, use Gparted to remove the partition & give the space to Puppy.

Andy

16

wow loni! that was really an informative post. i thank you for the support in just ‘trying’ it out. that is what i am doing and how i work best!!
so, my main problem with both of the last posts are that i don’t have a partition to play with. i cannot find any windows things to delete and find no way of finding a list of what is on the hard drive. i tried using vox, but there is just not enough ram and the poor thing dies.
how can i format the hard drive without going into linux? windows doesn’t work anymore (did it every really work?) and linux is so scrunched up because of the windows programs that are left on the system. have been trying with a dos boot, but that doesn’t recognize the hard drive and the hard drive has no command program…what a quagmire!
purplefool

17

purplefool wrote:
> wow loni! that was really an informative post.

yep, she usually on target!

> so, my main problem with both of the last posts are that i don’t have a
> partition to play with. i cannot find any windows things

the ‘windows things’ are in one partition on the hard drive that you
cannot see until it is “mounted” (but the good news is you don’t
have to see it to get rid of it)

> to delete and
> find no way of finding a list of what is on the hard drive. i tried
> using vox, but there is just not enough ram and the poor thing dies.

i’m not familiar with “vox”, what is that?

> how can i format the hard drive without going into linux? windows
> doesn’t work anymore

bingo! (learn by) stop avoiding linux and looking for a windows
solution…

i’m pretty sure all you need is built into Puppy…

try this:

  • hold down Ctrl+Alt and press F1
    (this will take you to a full screen terminal, similar to the old
    DOS…where Puppy will be asking you to sign in)

[NOTE: any time you wanna get back to the Puppy GUI, just hold down
Ctrl+Alt and press F7…note 2, there is ANOTHER terminal just
waiting for you at F2, F3, F4 and more…but, i’m NOT sure which
Puppy offers]

  • sign in as root, and give the root password when prompted (NOTE:
    you will NOT see the root password as you type, but Puppy will)

  • at the new prompt (it changed, did you notice?) type/enter:

Code:

parted l

[NOTE, that is an l as in lima, not the number 1]

the return screen will show ALL partitions on the hard disk…most
likely all partitions with a “fat32” file system contains those
“windows things”…the read out will include a Partition Number for
EACH partition…my GUESS is that all the ‘windows things’ are on
Partition 1…and it will be the ONLY fat32 partition…

AND, i guess that partition lives, unmounted, at /dev/sda1 (and your
linux partitions, which ARE mounted at

/dev/sda2 and maybe 3

let us check, this way: type/enter

Code:

df -h

which will show ONLY the mounted partitions, and where they are
mounted…i GUESS you will see
/dev/sda2 mounted on /
/dev/sda3 mounted on /home (MAYBE, maybe not)

so now we know, for sure that the ‘windows things’ are in the
unmounted fat32 partition at /dev/sda1

IF that is not the case (or you do not understand) do NOT
proceed…instead, copy the results of the parted and df commands
above back to the forum, along with your question…

otherwise: at that same command prompt type

Code:

man parted

where you can do some reading…see if you can figure out how to
delete the partition /dev/sda1

if you do, then see if you can resize your linux partition(s) to take
up the entire drive space…

btw: if Puppy didn’t make two linux partitions (one for /home) i’d
suggest you:

  • delete the fat32

  • resize the single existing / (which we call the Root Partition,
    which is Windows[s] talk is C:) to be about (i forget, is it you with
    a 10 G hard drive??) 5 gigs, and CREATE a new partition to hold /home
    from the rest of the space

note: NEVER ever forget when you are signed in as root! when you are
finished doing ‘root stuff’ type/enter:

Code:

exit

some folks (old forgetful men men usually) NEVER actually sign in as
root, but always as a normal user, and then use sudo (but that is a
different lesson) :wink:

and, never never never never ever sign into a linux GUI as
root…see: http://tinyurl.com/6ry6yd

prediction: you are gonna LOVE linux, one you get a little further up
this STEEP “learning curve”…
:peace:

DenverD (Linux Counter 282315) via NNTP, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14, KDE
3.5.7, SUSE Linux 10.3, 2.6.22.18-0.2-default #1 SMP i686 athlon

18

ok, first off, thx for your post. there is a lot of info in there that i hope to be using someday very (very!!) soon. however, got stuck on the first assignment: signing in as root. as a windows user would say

"HUH?"

so, how is it that you sign in as anything?

that was the first question. next, i am having trouble with the terminal anyway. i’m not sure what puppy is doing, but i think it is crashing(windows at least blows up>:)). so, what do i get? the screen you get when you do a cold shutdown. but that goes away very quickly and i just get this:

 "Starting X specs in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, startup apps /root/.xinitrc..."

in exactly that form. from here i can type in what i want, nothing comes of it. there is no prompt, just a curser. i type and hit return and have the curser on the next line…like word inverted.

i know that this is beginner’s stuff, but i have been reading an incredible amount of documentation…none of it covers not being able to find things to delete. i want to bring linux into my company, but not if i can’t even get puppylinux to work…that would just be a waste of time.

19

by the way, i was able to hit the ‘mount’ icon in puppy and found that i have one hard drive that is mounted without partitions(really!), one mounted cd drive and unmounted one floppy drive.

and i am actually more of a dos fan than windows…looking for a dos command that would format the drive. unfortunately i have been using the windows virus for so long that i seem to have forgotten most of my dos.

time for a new os and linux is my choice!lol!

20

On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:46:01 GMT
purplefool <purplefool@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
> ok, first off, thx for your post. there is a lot of info in there that
> i hope to be using someday very (very!!) soon. however, got stuck on
> the first assignment: signing in as root. as a windows user would say
>
> “HUH?”
>
> so, how is it that you sign in as anything?

Well, I suppose it’s another way of saying “Log in”.

> that was the first question. next, i am having trouble with the
> terminal anyway. i’m not sure what puppy is doing, but i think it is
> crashing(windows at least blows up>:)). so, what do i get? the screen
> you get when you do a cold shutdown. but that goes away very quickly
> and i just get this:
>
> “Starting X specs in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, startup apps
> /root/.xinitrc…”
>
> in exactly that form. from here i can type in what i want, nothing
> comes of it. there is no prompt, just a curser. i type and hit return
> and have the curser on the next line…like word inverted.

Sounds like the graphics system is not coming up as expected. You might try
pressing CTRL-ALT-F1 to get to a ‘console’, where you can log in (sign in!)
and do things in that manner.

Most linuxes support up to 6 ‘consoles’, located at CTRL-ALT-F1 through
CTRL-ALT-F6. Some give you four, F1-F4… but that’s rare.

It’s quite normal to be doing something in one console, need something else,
so you C-A-F2, and off you go… C-A-F1 and you’re back on console 1…

Technically, you need only press ALT-F1, etc if you’re in a console to
switch… but in the GUI (Xwindows), you need to press CTRL-ALT-F1 to do the
same… It doesn’t hurt anything to press it in the text console modes, so
it’s easier to just C-A-Fx whatever you need.

Oh, the GUI… it’s usually on F7… so C-A-F7 would return you to the GUI
interface… assuming it’s working of course.

> i know that this is beginner’s stuff, but i have been reading an
> incredible amount of documentation…none of it covers not being able to
> find things to delete. i want to bring linux into my company, but not if
> i can’t even get puppylinux to work…that would just be a waste of
> time.

{Smile} Give it time… it’s been like… what… 7 hours since you got it
working?

As for the Xwindows (the GUI), I’m getting foggy, as I’m up past my bedtime
as it is… maybe someone could help you resolve that. Considering that you
seem to want to wander around the ‘DOS’ side of things… it’s not a bit
hindrance as it is… just remember to C-A-F1 to get away from the GUI to a
console. Often other consoles will show you logs too, try C-A-F10 or F8.
Try them all!! Nothing to lose!

Congratulations again.

Loni

–
L R Nix
lornix@lornix.com