Linux on the LapTop.

[digiSal]

Compaq Presario 700
900mhz AMD Duron
256MB of RAM
20GB Hard Drive

I have been wanting to put Linux on my LapTop for the longest time. But there were obstacles that I needed to cross first.

First, i wanted to make an Image of the Current XP Home Installation. Its an Install straight out of the box.

Second, I wanted to install Suse 9 Professional. It is not fully downloadable, but an FTP install is available. But i do not have the patience to do so. I have only managed to get Discs 1 and 2 out of Five. I have decided to buy a copy off of eBay. Its about 6 bucks plus another five for shipping.

Last night I was finally able to use Ghost to make an image of my hard drive. I wanted to place this Image on my Home PC. This seems easy but both computers have to be in DOS and connected some how. This can be done by connecting both PCs together via USB, LPT1, or by Crossover Cable. I tried the Crossover cable first. I needed a Network Boot Disck to Accomplish This. And this is where the Fun Began.

[chupame2]

sounds cool.  soon as i get another hard drive, im gonna ghost the drives i have now and use the little 4GBs as different OSs.  i think i have suse 7.  need to pick it up at christmas  :nerd:

PS you need to see about christmas smilies

[digiSal]

Creating Network disks is/was a pain in the arse. The Ghost documentation said that it could create one for me  in the Boot Wizard. Either I was looking at the Wrong Boot Wizard or i had a different version. I doubt this because I had Ghost 7.5 but it would not let me select TCP/IP as the option to image the disk.

So then I went out looking for instructions on making a network boot disc. I found a few here and there, but most required a Windows NT  4 Server cd. Here

I then discovered the Portlock Boot Wizard that will create a network boot disc for the PC it was run on. I managed to create a disc for the laptop but it wouldnt make one for the PC! I thought it was because m y floppy discs were bad but no go. So gave up on that. But still a good Utility to have.

Ghost also gives you the option to place Images on other hard discs via USB or Parallel (LPT1) ports.

Tony (Big_T) loaned me a Parallel cable which i connected to the LapTop and PC. Fired up Ghost in DOS, Selected the laptop as Master (source) and fired up Ghost on the PC and seleced it as Slave (destination) and Ghost told me they were connected. I then told Ghost i wanted to place an Image file of my whole hard disc on my Slave HD on the PC and let her rip! Well, the ghost was estimating the copy to take 14 hours!! No way I was going to let it do that! So I killed it and went back to researching Ghosting via TCP/IP (crossover cable)....more fun.

[digiSal]

i then Moved to Drive Image 2002 to create me a network disc to boot up with and use Drive Image to image the laptop. BUt it failed to bind my network card so it was a no go.

So after reading some more i gave Ghost 2003 a go. This version is different. It has to be installed on each PC before the Ghost process. The other version fits on a flopppy disc. When launched i have to select Advanced Options and then I tell it i want to clone via TCP/IP, it automatically detects my NIC, and i tell it the IP address and Subnet Mask i want to us and it reboots in to DOS using a Virtual DIsc rather then creating floppy discs. The ghost wizard is identical to the one i used before except now i am able to select TCP/IP for connection. I tell the laptop it will be master and it waits for me to input the IP address of the Slave PC.  I do the same steps on the Slave PC, different IP address in the same Range. Once booted i tell it it will be slave and it tells me what IP address to input in the Master pc so they can talk. Once this is done it tells me i am connected and then i tell it where to place the Image of the Laptop.

It took a little bit over an hour to create the image. A lot better then 14 hours via LPTI!

and now, i can install Linux. Untill my Suse discs arrive I went ahead and began an installation of Knoppix to the LapTOp. Supposed to be pretty straight forward and simple.

Yeah, simple...

[neuromancer]

WOW. That was a hell of an adventure. LOL

I have used Ghost 2003 for a while now and love it!

Thanks for the blow by blow ... interesting to read.

David

[digiSal]

well crap!! i typed up the conclusion of this story and i lost the post!!

grrrr. will fill it in later.

[digiSal]

Well, the HD Install HOWTO made it seem very simple to install Knoppix to the hard disc. When complete it will be your standard Debian Install.

I went to a root shell and did knoppix-installer as per: http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/HdInstallHowTo

It launches qtparted, which is a Partition Magic for Linux, I deleted my NTFS partitioni and created one 2.5 GB root ext3 partition, one 512MB Linux Swap partition, and the rest Fat32, about 17 Gigs. When I exit this it then asks me if i want to install configuration or create, obviously, i create one first. It asks me what i want my new parsewords to be, what new user to create, what to name the laptop, and where to copy the files. Pretty straight forward. Then i copy the configuration, this takes about 40 minutes. From here I should be able to reboot and be good to go!

But, I am not that lucky. I get a Missing Opertating System error. Crap.

I do some research and tried reinstalling my Lilo, but i get errors. I need to comment out a line. I do so in lilo.conf and make a few edits as to where my root partition is. I reinstall lilo by doing sbin/lilo after chrooting to my root partition. I reboot and i am now getting errors that my filesysystem is corrupt. I read that this could happen after to many illegal powerdowns. Which i had to do a few times. So I reformat and reinstall. Still no go. I then looked in my fstab and noticed it was empty. The fstab is where all my partitions and drives are specified. There was nothing in there. I added some lines that I thought would work. I couldnt find a clear documentation that I understood as to how it was supposed to be. So I came to a stand still here. Went a whole day without touching the laptop. The Knoppix forums told me i was pioneering problems..hehe..

The following day I went back to my HDInstall HOWTO, the link to the HOWTO told me to do knoppix-installer if i was using the latest Knoppix disk, which i did, but the actual HOWTO said to use knx-hdinstall. So i did it this way. The configuration was slightly different but it worked like a charm.

I am now posting from my Knoppix/Debian Linux Laptop.

Using apt-get and Synaptic, a gui for apt-get, I upgraded my system, but now i have lost  my sound!

While posting here the formatting for the textarea was all jacked up! I narrowed it down to the Smilie box to the leeft which Jacks up the formatting. I found an easy fix.
I am using Konqueror for WebBrowsing and I can tell it how to Identify it as a browser. So i made it look at my WebSite as if it were Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP, and it fixed it right up...

Questions? Comments? Concerns?  

[Weave]

I tried a hard drive install of Knoppix and finally reloaded Windows 98SE on her.

[neuromancer]

I am using Konqueror for WebBrowsing and I can tell it how to Identify it as a browser. So i made it look at my WebSite as if it were Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP, and it fixed it right up...

Remember I had that issue? I never thought of telling it to look like IE6 ... I thought that setting would just tell the web site to think someone was running IE6 not let Konqueror run the web site like IE6. Cool ...

David

[digiSal]

sorry, i dont remember you having that problem.  

I believe that setting you are talking about does exist also. I cant remember off the top of my head whre this setting is though. Its on the main menus though.

My sound came back after a few reboots on the LapTop, but i couldnt get the DVD player to work. I have always used XINE on Red Hat.

I really wanted this to work before the drive home this holiday but i couldnt get it. I like to watch, or listen, to a DVD while I am driving. Makes the 4 and half hour road trup go a little faster. The night before i was going to come back i made an image of the knoppix installation using the Knoppix CD, partimage. And I installed SuSE on it. But same problems. Only it supposed to be easily remedied in SuSe, but i didnt have an internnet connection to try anything.

I am going to leave SuSe on it. I only messed it a little bit but it seems easier to manage then Red Hat or Debian/Linux. I will be putting SuSe on the Desktop PC also.

[digiSal]

Well, its very late, or early, and i got the DVD to work on this SuSe Laptop..hehe...

by way of this link:
http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/

i had uninstall my current Xine to get it to work properly and then i had to Enable DMA on the DVD rom drive to prevent skipping. The video would skip every few seconds. It looks pretty good. I think i might need to get better video drivers. Will get into later. Must sleep.

Oh, and to change the Browser Identification in Konqueror you click Tools, then Change Browser Identification, and then select the Browser you want. Its a big list.

--Sal-