Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 16:55:22 +0800 From: Raymond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Experiences trying to get Linux onto this @!#@#$@#$@#$# thing!
Hi all! OK again for your amusement and bemusement here are some things I noticed whilst trying to get Red Hat Linux 6.2 working on my L50 with a 20 gig hard drive. If anyone wants to comment, correct or shed additional light on any of these, please do! (oh and ya I know there are other linux distros, I chose RH6.2 for compatibility with work so THAT argument is no longer valid ;-). 1: Forget what anyone else says, go get yourself a HDD converter and put the hard drive into a big computer. If anything it'll mean Linux installs in 10 minutes and not 2 hours. Make sure KUDZU loads when you first reboot after the hard drive is put into the libby and make sure you enable the SVGA X server. 2: Install EZ-Bios (I'm using 9.09W) and whatever you do DO NOT LET YOUR COMPUTER BOOT OFF THE FLOPPY DISKETTE! If you spend half the time booting off floppy diskette (ie. EZ-Bios doesn't load) and half the time booting off the hard drive (so EZ-Bios loads) you end up with 1.5 copies of the partition table (as in you end up with some programs such as Partition Magic seeing one version of your partition table, programs such as Linux FDISK seeing a totally different version and some programs such as NT Disk Admin or Norton Ghost not being able to make their minds up and deciding the entire thing is corrupt). Of course, if you need to boot off the floppy diskette, hold down CTRL so EZ-Bios still loads then tell it to use A: to get the boot stuff. 3: Watch PowerQuest Partition Magic 6 (and PowerQuest DriveImage for that matter) like a hawk and preferrably stick to DOS and Linux FDISK ... for some silly reason, when I created 3 primaries (a FAT16, an EXT2 and a Linux Swap in that order), Linux reconed the FAT16 was HDA1, the Linux Swap was HDA2 and the EXT2 was HDA3! ... when I removed everything and did the same thing under Linux FDISK, Partition Magic saw no difference but the partition scheme according to Linux was now the right way round. Plus Partition Magic seems to contribute to problem 2 above anyway. 4: On the subject of partitioning, if you have EZ-Bios, WHATEVER YOU DO, let EZ-Bios create all those FAT16 partitions for you. Then, when you next boot, let EZ-Bios load then press CTRL and boot off a DOS floppy with FDISK. Delete all the partitions EXCEPT THE FIRST. NEVER DELETE THE FIRST, for some reason EZ-Bios puts some special stuff there. You can ghost over it, you can install Windows or Linux over it but don't delete it. Also, for some reason if you remove it then use Linux FDISK, EZ-Bios gets all confused. The advice that the fdisk MAN page gives is perhaps wise ... use DOS FDISK to create the DOS FAT16 and FAT32 partitions and use Linux fdisk (or cfdisk once you're installed) to do the Linux partitions. I ended up doing things in this order. i. Installed EZ-Bios (after nuking the drive, FDISKING it as a full drive, doing a full format then nuking it again). Chose to create a million and one FAT16 partitions. ii. Rebooted, went back into EZ-Bios setup and enabled EZ-Bios. For some reason, if you install EZ-Bios and it detects that your computer can handle the large hard drive, it doesn't fully install (remember, I have the hard drive in my desktop to do this) but we want EZ-Bios loaded because the HDD will move to the laptop and if you start partitioning without EZ-Bios loaded things screw up. iii. Rebooted, held down CTRL, put in a DOS boot disk with FDISK and Ghost, pressed A to boot off the FDD then used FDISK to remove all partitions (including the extended partition) except for the first primary partition. iv. Rebooted same way but this time loaded Ghost to restore Win95 to the first primary partition (WITHOUT deleting it first). v. Rebooted same way but this time with a Linux Install boot disk. Started the Linux install process and put the RH6.2 CD in. vi. Did a custom install and chose to use FDISK because Disk Druid doesn't let you say what you want as primary and what you want as extended. Created a 2 gig primary for / and a 100 meg primary for swap. Didn't create any extended partitions. vii. Finished the install as normal but told the install to write Lilo to /dev/hda2 and not the MBR. Created a boot diskette so I could actually boot Linux before I did the NTLDR thing (see below). Rebooted with the ctrl thing then put that boot diskette in just to make sure the install was fine. Especially I looked to make sure the Linux boot process could see that I was using EZ-Bios (just after it detects the hard drives it does a partition check, if it detects EZ-Bios it'll show "hda: [EZD] [remap 0->1] [2432/255/63] hda1 hda2 ........") viii. Shut down, rebooted, did the CTRL thing, booted with the DOS boot disk again then used FDISK to create the extended partition then all the virtual drives. I left space for the hibernation area by calculating the space in Mbytes from the start of the disk for sectors 1010 and 1040 then creating partitions up to that, creating one partition from 1010 to 1040 then all partitions after that, then deleted the one from 1010 to 1040. iix. Rebooted into Linux using the ctrl at EZ-Bios then Linux boot disk method, checked that the bootup check now read "hda: [EZD] [remap 0->1] [2432/255/63] hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 hda9 >" then loaded up Linux FDISK just to make sure that I'd left 1010 to 1040 clear. ix. Formatted all the FAT16 and FAT32 partitions, booted Windows to make sure they were all visible. x. Install NT4 onto one of the FAT16 partitions and convert it to NTFS then get NTLDR to load Lilo (I've yet to do this). 5: I've only tried it twice so its hardly conclusive but from what I gather, LILO and EZ-Bios don't like each other. When I install LILO onto the MBR after EZ-Bios is on there, it removes the EZ-Bios 'press Ctrl to enter boot menu' thingy. The net effect is that you can no longer load EZ-Bios then boot from floppy - a really bad situation! EZ-Bios still loads (Windows can still see everything) but then when you try to re-enable or re-load EZ-Bios from floppy, for some reason it completely hoses all the partitions except the first!!! (as in not even Linux FDISK can see them anymore). I'm sticking to LILO on the boot record of the second partition then I'll extract the boot record and use NTLDR to load Lilo (which can then load Linux) ... http://www.tburke.net/info/ntldr/ntldr_hacking_guide.htm has details on how that can be done for anyone interested (and it DOES work, or rather it did on my old box without EZ-Bios but then again I know NTLDR can live with EZ-Bios so I'm hopeful). In the meantime I'm using a Linux boot disk to get into Linux. 6: do NOT set X to start on bootup! It takes freakin AGES to load the X login screen on an L50 with 16 meg RAM for some reason ... stick to text mode and go to X if you must. Of course, many of you probably already know this and bits of this have already been covered in the past in the list but since I've already written it all out I might as well post it ... hehe Hope this helps someone and saves them from spending an entire weekend getting Linux on their laptop! - Raymond --- /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\ | | "Does fuzzy logic tickle?" | | ___ | "My HDD has no reverse. How do I backup?" | | /__/ +-------------------------------------------| | / \ a y b o t | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | | HTTP://www.raybot.net | | ICQ: 31756092 | Need help? Visit #Windows98 on DALNet! | \~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~/ ************************************************************** http://libretto.basiclink.com - Libretto mailing list http://libretto.basiclink.com/archive - Archives http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/portable/faq.html - FAQ -------TO UNSUBSCRIBE------- Reply to any of the list messages. The reply mail should be addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Then replace any text on the message's subject line: cmd:unsubscribe --------TO UNSUBSCRIBE DIGEST------ Do above but with this on subject line: cmd:unsubscribe digest **************************************************************
