Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

I wrote in earlier that we were trying to put linux onto a pentium laptop 
that could not be formatted with DOS (MS, Win, DR, PS) but could be 
formatted as ext2 and booted from lilo floppy disk.  (It also runs fine 
with BL3 on two floppies, and with a CD-ROM linux after using Smart Boot 
Manager to boot from).

We were able to boot linux from boot lilo floppy but not hard drive (which 
does not mean we did it correctly).  We tried Smart Boot Manager on hard 
drive following instructions to change lilo.conf hda to hda1 (the boot 
partition) and install lilo to superblock, but could still not boot linux 
from hard drive, just lilo boot floppy.  

Finally we tried FreeDOS from James, which can access long file names 
(FAT32) and for some reason it formatted/partitioned/installed and runs 
just fine on the computer.  We are told Windows NT also works there.

Why would FreeDOS, NT, and linux work where MS DOS, DWin95 and Win98 DOS 
(both FAT32), DR-DOS, and PC-DOS not work?  WE got all sorts of garbled 
file names, partition not found, etc.  

Anyway, we can now boot with loadlin from FreeDOS and will see if FreeDOS 
defrag can work on a Windows 98 partition.  Win98 is brain-dead anyway.  

Using SBM to boot from CD-ROM, I was able to use DSL on CD-ROM, but SW91
run from CD-ROM (sent by a list member) kept dumping me back to the prompt
while I was running pppsetup.  It worked on a fast desktop computer with
loads of RAM, but not on the 100MHz laptop with 24MB RAM (and no swap file
- can't make on a CD-ROM or at least I don't know how).

Sindi