Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On the computer that sometimes will not boot linux (except from Win9x DOS)
but instead tells me 'Not a kernel image', I put in the SW4.0 CD to 
install the five packages needed for compiling (so I could compile pppd to 
work with my external modem).

We had just upgraded to 4x64MB then discovered that the 64MB SIMMs cause 
problems here and downgrade to 96MB.

I noticed zipslack and read readme.1st which says to unzip the file to a 
DOS directory with 87MB free (I have that and to spare) with an unzip 
program for DOS or Windows and there were instructions on which buttons to 
'hit' in Windows to extract all the files to disk.

Since I don't have WIndows on here I tried pkunzip -d zipslack.zip (with 
the proper path name to the CD).  Insufficient memory for pkunzip.  I 
copied the file to the DOS drive, same problem.

I wonder if whoever wrote the readme actually tried DOS pkunzip.  Can the 
extracted file be larger than 64MB for DOS pkunzip?

I had defragmented F: to start with as I expected to get a lot (!) of 
small files on there.

So I booted into BL2 and used the linux unzip program there.  (Does BL23
busybox unzip work on 37MB zip files?).  It worked perfectly now that I 
have the right RAM installed.

It made a \linux directory with loadlin.exe and a linux.bat file so I 
typed linux and got "Not a kernel image".  No big surprise.  Tried again, 
and this happened FIVE TIMES IN A ROW.

I could boot BL2 to hard drive again, on the first try.
Also BL3 to hard drive on the first try.

Tried the zipslack again and it won't boot.

Booted to BL3 to report this.  4 out of 4 on BL, 0 out of 5 zipslack.

Does loading all these files from DOS (UMSDOS) somehow stress the computer 
more than loading from loop, floppy disk, or ext2?

I found this interesting but would not want to use zipslack on this 
computer as it means booting from a Win9X CD (which I have not yet even 
tried, actually).  Zipslack was a lot less customized than BL and had all 
sorts of unnecessary junk on there for computers a few years newer than 
mine and also some much older stuff like joysticks.


I then deleted zipslack.zip and tried to defragment and was told 
insufficient memory.  Too many files?  I might just delete the whole thing 
after trying it once from a Win9x boot.  DamnSmallLinux works and does not 
clog my DOS drive, if I want to play with a 'large' linux.

I had tried mulinux once and got about 3,000 (30,000?) linux files on the
computer, which I also deleted.  It did work and I got online with a very 
old lynx.

I then went through the files installed for compiling in BL3 and deleted 
all the stuff in asm- anything but generic and i386, and various other 
irrelevancies like joysticks.  Probably lots left, but I got the /include 
directory down to about 4 instead of 8MB.  Did not even attack locale yet.


Does UMSDOS overheat things more than regular linuxes?  Bare.i kernel from 
SW71 has booted fine for me (for testing out sound).  I might try BL3 
kernel on this next.

 keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org