Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 21:51:37 +0200
From: Philip Nienhuis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [LIB] Linux on a 100CT
Tony Oresteen wrote:
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 09:44:56 -0400
From: "Tony Oresteen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Linux on a 100CT
I've decided to run Linux on my Libby 100CT (233MHz 64MB RAM). I have a spare
12 Gig drive that I will use only for Linux. DOS/Win98 will stay on the 40Gig.
Last night I partition the 12 Gig as follows:
Partition 1: 128mb Linux Swap
Partition 2: Logical Partition 1: 52mb Boot Linux ext2
Logical Partition 2: 7.2 gig Linux ext3
Partition 3: 100mb Libby hibernate area
Partition 4: 4 gig Linux ext3
To partition I first booted to Partition Magic 8.0 and it saw the drive as an 8
gig. I wrote down the last sector info.
I then booted to EZ-BIOS 9.09 and installed EZ-BIOS. I then booted PM 8.0 and
it now saw the drive as a 12 gig. I made the first partition 8 gig and
adjusted the size until it was the EXACT size that PM saw without EZ-BIOS. I
then created the 100mb hibernate area. Once the hibernate area was established
(do NOT format it) I then cut up the 8 gig portion into swap, boot, and stuff.
The remaining 4 gig was made a Linux stuff partition.
Now the hard part. How do I load the Linux distribution files to the hard
drive? I downloaded Amigo Linux 2.0 to my Windows 2K box but I am wondering
how to get them on the 12 gig drive.
Suggestions?
Well, some:
1. Why use EZ-BIOS if Linux already during installation bypasses the
buggy Lib BIOS in the first place? Only Win98 & DOS may "benefit" from it.
EZ-BIOS only makes things more dependent & complex. I'm not quite a fan
of it.
2. There's a potential pitfall with assigning partitions "just like PM
8.0 saw them w/o EZ-BIOS". Many disk overlays hide the very first
cylinder/head so in fact shift the entire drive geometry one track up:
they pretend to the OSes that cyl 0 head 1 is actually cyl 0 head 0 (to
be able to hide their own initialization code). No problem for the OS,
but the Lib's hibernation BIOS can't be fooled this way - it just
ignores the disk overlay. Watch out for this....
3. You really do not need PM 8.0 in any way, as most Linux distros bring
their own partitioning tools with them. You might only need one small
partition to fire up the install kernel & install program, Linux
partitioning stuff will take care of the rest. Such a temporary
partition can be made easily with even DOS FDISK.
Some distros allow even to boot from floppy.
4. What you can do to install Linux is to make a temporary FAT partition
and copy the install kernel + support files to it. Then boot using
loadlin.exe (usually something like "loadlin vmlinuz <parameters>) and
off you go.
Look at the links on the linux-on-laptops pages for installation reports
to get some ideas:
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/toshiba.html
Good luck,
Philip
