I'm trying to install 4.1 on an HP Omnibook 800CT (P166/MMX), 80mb ram). I don't have a working floppy or CD Rom drive for it at the moment (no USB ports, and the CD works off of SCSI). I took the 2gb HD out, hooked it up to another computer with a USB to IDE hookup,partitioned it with a bootable partition (ext3), and a 200 mb Linux swap partition. I've been trying to use the Universal installer to install Puppy to the bootable partition. The only way it will do it is as a USB bootable HD. The EXTLINUX.conf file has pmedia=usbhd which I changed to idehd. the whole extlinux.conf file reads:
default vmlinux initrd=initrd.gz pmedia=idehd nosmp
The booting process starts, gets to "booting Linux" and stops, no matter what I do to the extlinux.conf file. Any ideas?
Jon
How to install 4.1 to an Omnibook 800CT? <SOLVED>
How to install 4.1 to an Omnibook 800CT? <SOLVED>
Last edited by jonlowe on Sat 18 Oct 2008, 19:05, edited 1 time in total.
OK, here is what I tried today. I made another partition on my main computer, and did a clean frugal install of 4.1 retro to that partition; did not boot from it. Copied that over to my harddrive for my Omnibook, which had a clean partition for Linux plus a separate Linux swap file partition. Did an MBR grub install to my Omnibook harddrive, and edited the menu.lst to the following:
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy Linux 4.08retro (on /dev/hda)
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz pmedia=idehd ro vga=normal
initrd /initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
Now if finally boots up to the main screen I play around a bit, and everything appears normal. I tell it to restart so I can get a save file, which I chose to save to the main partition, not the 4gb limited one. It begins to reboot, and gets to:
"Loading the 'pup_408.sfs' main file...forced copying to ram"
At that point, it thrashes for awhile, until it either freezes, or I get a kernel panic because I run out of my whole 80mb of ram. I've tried noram, etc, etc, but get the same result.
What is making it do this? How do I stop it? Why does it only do it on the restart?
Jon
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy Linux 4.08retro (on /dev/hda)
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz pmedia=idehd ro vga=normal
initrd /initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
Now if finally boots up to the main screen I play around a bit, and everything appears normal. I tell it to restart so I can get a save file, which I chose to save to the main partition, not the 4gb limited one. It begins to reboot, and gets to:
"Loading the 'pup_408.sfs' main file...forced copying to ram"
At that point, it thrashes for awhile, until it either freezes, or I get a kernel panic because I run out of my whole 80mb of ram. I've tried noram, etc, etc, but get the same result.
What is making it do this? How do I stop it? Why does it only do it on the restart?
Jon
OK, solved that problem. I redid the harddrive AGAIN, but this time took the default option of how the do the puppy save file, instead of the option to use the whole partition. That worked. Not sure why, but it did. now I can reboot and things proceed normally. Still using retro. Will try 4.1 standard later today.
Jon
Jon
I also found another way to install puppy without using a grub file. In the universal installer, choose USB harddrive. Follow the default choices for installation. At the MBR screen, I chose the mbr.bin option. Not sure it is necessary, but it worked. When it is done, and while the drive is still attached via the USB cable, edit the extlinux.conf file
FROM this:
default vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz pmedia=usbhd nosmp
TO this:
default /vmlinuz initrd=/initrd.gz
I found the slashes were the key to tell it that the files were at the root. pmedia only tells the system to only look at that drive for puppy save files. If you want to keep it, it should read pmedia =idehd (I didn't try that though). "nosmp" tells it not to use both processors in a dual processor setup. Don't need that one for sure!
Now install the drive into Omnibook, and you are good to go. The first couple of boots are sloooowwww. It does get faster as the file system gets sorted out.
Also, be SURE to save your session as the default puppy save file. Other wise you will run into the same problems as posts above if you choose the use the partition option.
Jon
FROM this:
default vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz pmedia=usbhd nosmp
TO this:
default /vmlinuz initrd=/initrd.gz
I found the slashes were the key to tell it that the files were at the root. pmedia only tells the system to only look at that drive for puppy save files. If you want to keep it, it should read pmedia =idehd (I didn't try that though). "nosmp" tells it not to use both processors in a dual processor setup. Don't need that one for sure!
Now install the drive into Omnibook, and you are good to go. The first couple of boots are sloooowwww. It does get faster as the file system gets sorted out.
Also, be SURE to save your session as the default puppy save file. Other wise you will run into the same problems as posts above if you choose the use the partition option.
Jon