Re: keyboard error?
I have an IBM ps/2 8525 (an 8086 CPU). The booting of ELKS works well except by some problems when trying to mount the hard disk (I think it's toasted because don't works even with DOS). But the real problem comes when the Login prompt appears. I can't write noting. The keyboard is completly dead. I have a PS/2 enhanced keyboard with 104 keys. I don't acutally have _any_ PS/2 machine, but other people do. In my personal opinion (and i am willing to bet on it) recompiling kernel (and using BIOS driver instead of direct one) would do the trick. If you look from the other point - IBM didn't really invent the BIOS (GR did), but they relied heavily on their BIOS being competitive advantage in ()then developing) PC market. BIOS povides standard access to system devices to any OS (or program) and i guess DOS uses BIOS to get keyboard input. If BIOS is designed to work exactly the same on each and every 100% compatible box (and especially IBM) then BIOS console driver should work on any box with IBM compatible BIOS (and IBM BIOS surely is IBM compatible). So my suggestion to all the people that encountered this particular problem with this particual IBM machine was to recompile the kernel with BIOS console driver instead of direct one. Sadly enough no1 ever took those 5 minutes that are needed to recompile ELKS kernel, they just kept whining for on and on. I hope you will be the first one to try and prove me right (or wrong). Anyway. it won't take you more than 5 minutes on any reasonably fast machine, like P200 or something) to prove or disprove my theory and crush my faith in BIOS compatibility. And no, i don't need any examples refering to incompatible BIOSes of some sort, i do believe that keyboard input is one of most basic and simplest bits to write. bye, Ab
Re: ELKS and TCP/IP
is out there and ported to a micro or two. Only does PPP though. It appears to be derived from KA9Q, BSD and Linux code. I think the site is http://www.ucos-ii.com/ KA9Q is $50 a copy of non education/non amateur radio users Alan
RE: Location of ELKS Archive?
On Wed, 26 Apr 2000, Hofmann Michael wrote: Alistair Riddoch wrote: Looking at the state of the project it is no longer obvious to me which way to proceed. It essentially runs pretty stably on all my test platforms, and I have reached the point where it is no longer obvious to me what to do next. Any ideas anyone? Yes. How about a Linux- or Minix-like way to install. To me it seems to be pretty complicated the way it is now, and I'm looking forward to a more user-friendly installation, for clueless guys like me :-) Ever since I discovered this great project, I'm waiting for the day to install it on my 286. Unfortunately I'm not experienced enough to contribute, except for maybe doing a document translation to German... Anyway, thanks for your work so far. Regards, Michael A compact distro that would fit on a few disks and contain elks, a nice editor for non-vi-enthusiasts (a tiny emacs? Even ms works 1.1. runs on dos 3.3. on my 8088), support for several keymaps, a small rogue-like game, a calendar app... I think elks works ok but apps are needed. Then just call it 1.0 and whoa! end-users will emerge to jam the 0806 list. J.S.
Re: Linux for a really old computer
On Tue, 2 May 2000, Jan Dobrucki wrote: Hi folks. I have a little problem. I got an Amstrad PC1640 HD20. Real old. I don't even know how much RAM it has. So tell me, any hope for porting Lunux to it, or do I have to find myself a 386 with 4 MB of RAM? Regards, Jan Dobrucki Hi Jan, Somehow I feel you should get some hints from this list right here! J.S.
RE: Linux for a really old computer
On Tue, 2 May 2000, Kalogirou Harilaos wrote: The amstrad PC1640 has nothing to do this 286 and 386 , it is just an 8086 based machine... The one we are talking about obviously has 20MB harddisk... Try Minix on it. Minix got BSD-licensed a few weeks ago. Jakob
Re: Linux for a really old computer
Hi, I've gotten more information than I expected. Unfortunately I don't have a manual for my AMSTRAD so I'm not sure what configuration settings I can change. Minix and Elks sound very promissing. Question, do they fit on a floppy with 360Kb of memory? Or do I need a 1.44Mb? Cheers. Jan Dobrucki PS. If any of you got PGP then here's my public key. -BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK- Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.3 for non-commercial use http://www.pgp.com mQENAzjRd90BYwEIALqnra7+woWJ7dLAqziBBn7Ex14qr6J03QvBnpKBfjYVx1CO KsItrtIgqGxwz8ujmPu8Qa/nXIlegV0/aEr+mHY+Ky3OP8vWcmGfEJ6tLemA7nFF mON4PXV2L7qtJ9Xp1c2SAOd2Bl8W3aPVCIep8GxJtTqi6b4tGhWK23dGQlc0QF+I Rb/6cz8mVpld5c+raIW/S3cd/uuwb3ljNNddVeeMJ1FblwGy31rQR5SdvYE4d7Mq mRtR6bTHPSzx+Vrg4Ms+78TUV59o0OPrLPW6lWI6lHjhsBWVqZB/u2C66sDvTnmk bLs5nHLeRMYIdgdXWGkZar0KaJMh+Sc+cP6w5AMABRG0HEphbiBEb2JydWNraSA8 amRvQHBvY3p0YS5mbT6JARUDBRA40Xfd+Sc+cP6w5AMBAZ4ZB/4zXF3tIcQGxTny U6Su4wYxj1QKKmEfLdTJ7pORcXovWJriAxikWJANaMm1qNoi247VyLr4UV0qlNkF s3SqDfBWMy0yDbdHeOWuJorV6SXNBF2FgAm0QRuvfB0h1bE4czQ4Y1eABGI8V68U RylArRQ8aqev+jb/TRXXIwTTtsvwbrbYwJSfCxfq7qDy070hYgKgZGF60wdMgNTT 9lQiRs7EGMMmBRgdf07hUBjNvjigf5F4Ei3NlRq0MDjs8D8eVdMMoiXn511/j32q DMwSBxA6JBWUNuaqLyj0jN4JxAmuccrSvhv66s5C4ZDx9hUKrhFIw9+zMaQaYt21 81//6tJx =rU6k -END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-
