Baslinux mailing list

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

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> sindi keesan wrote:
> > Memtest finds 4736K of RAM.  Memtest tries to check
> > 80K - 5M.  It gets (very very slowly) to test 12
> > On the 386 it crashes:
>
> Clearly, crashing on memtest is a bad sign.

Actually, this is not the problem.  We have a nearly identical (regarding 
memory size and Cirrus video and speed SX20)  386 laptop which has an 
identical problem with memtest #12.  It did boot BL3.32 loop.  Northgate.

The first one still goes black while uncompressing linux, the HD light 
blinks for a while, then it stops doing even that.

On this other 386 we were going to try serial file transfer (llpro) 
but the serial port was not working, or the modem for download.  (It turns 
out that you need to un-disable them in CMOS and our CMOS battery is dead 
and we cannot keep them undisabled).


So my partner split the bl3-32.zip file with 'cutter' to two floppy disks 
and transferred them that way to this computer which has a 41MB hard disk 
that works fine.  So now we have a way to move BL3-32 between computers. 
You might suggest that at your website, or post a '2-floppy loop' version 
with instructions on how to recombine it when installing to loop.

This computer is nearly a hemiplegic - noisy floppy drive, dead backlight, 
keyboard stopped working when he tried to fix other things, battery.

The zip file was copied to HD, recombined and then unzipped.  It booted.


He figures you can get BL3 with swap.img into 32MB if you first remove 
bl3-32.zip to make more free space before unzipping swap.zip.  Another 
possibility is to use smaller cluster sizes which makes for more free 
space in DOS - 512K cluster size in exactly 32MB or less partition. 
PQMAGIC lets you choose cluster size - is there way to do this with a free 
partitioning program?

BL3-32 boots on the hemiplegic computer, without having first unzipped 
the swap file.  If you shine the light on it just right you can read it. 
If he gets the keyboard working again it will need a battery and then he 
will have a cheap portable computer to take to school for use with 'Linux 
Shells and Scripts' course this winter.

Free - about 3700K of 4736K.  The kernel is apparently occupying only 
about 1M on this low-ram computer.  2x4736 - 1000 means we would want 
about 8.3M swap partition if we put BL3 on here on a linux partition of a 
larger hard drive.  Hopefully the 6.7M swap file will be adequate.



> > Might you want to mention this on your website, where
> > it says you can use BL3 on a 386 and you need 4MB RAM
> > and 25MB DOS partition?
>
> Where exactly does it say you need a 25mb DOS partition?

I cannot find that at the website (which I notice does state that both 
versions can install to hard drive).  You must have mentioned this in an 
email to the list.  Would it help to add something to the website about 
BL3 loop being set up to work in as little as 32MB disk space (or less if 
you have more RAM) on a DOS partition?


> > > I realize that you've had some problems transfering, but
> > > there is nothing magic about the big zip file that trips
> > > up your plip transfer.
> >
> > We did this at least ten times on various hardwares.  Via
> > plip or llpro/parallel the img file always got corrupted,
> > even inside the zip file.
> > Nothing else ever gets corrupted.
>
> Sounds like voodoo to me.  It's a zip file.  The file zips,
> no problem.  The file unzips, no problem.  The zip file is
> transfered, no problem, with perfect md5sum.   But somehow,
> when this particular zip file is unzipped, it is corrupted.
> Spooky.

It works via floppy transfer.  Have you actually tried a plip transfer of 
bl3-32.zip?  I would get the same md5sum on the zip file but different 
numbers for fs.img when I unzipped.  No problesm with ethernet, just plip 
or llpro.

I also have no idea why our one computer goes black and crashes during 
booting linux and the nearly identical one does not.

> > I transferred, via plip, 150MB of my entire linux installation
> > and everything came through okay.
>
> I assume that was a tgz and you used Linux to unpack it?
Yes.

> > But the plip transfer of under 3MB bl3-32.zip did not
>
> Then you should consider whether your unzipper could be at
> fault.  I assume you were using DOS to unzip?

I think I also tried linux unzip but shouldn't BL3 be set up to work for 
people who do not have linux already, just pkunzip?  You can look for my 
older postings on this subject.


> I recommend you do an md5sum at both ends of the transfer.
> If the md5sums tally, then the transfer is OK.  The focus
> then goes the unzipping process.


Some day we can try this again (llprop parallle, pkunzip vs linux unzip).
I want to get the 386 either working with its own keyboard or recycled 
first.

> > I think this means that 8MB RAM holds 2.3MB of kernel
>
> The BL3 kernel is much smaller than that.  See dmesg:
> -----------------------------------------------------
> 884k kernel code, 416k reserved, 1496k data, 36k init
> -----------------------------------------------------

So why the 6.7MB swap file?  I must have misunderstood, I thought you did 
2x8M minus 2.3M kernel.

> > How would one switch to an external monitor?
>
> Some laptops auto-detect an external monitor (plug it in
> before you boot).  This capability might be selectable
> in CMOS setup.  Otherwise, there is probably a hotkey:
> some special key (Fn?) plus one of the F keys perhaps?

We tried auto, we looked in setup, we tried every combination listed at 
one site (Northgate was not on the list) except with Fn key because our 
keyboard (external) does not have that.

A diagnostic program is detecting the external keyboard as a mouse.


I will report back on our success getting this 386 with BL3.32 to work as 
an Xterminal.  It has 4-bit greyscale so won't run links2 or abiword. 
Also 8-bit color via external monitor but Xvesa won't work with that.

Could the SVGA X server possibly be set up with the lowest possible 
settings for refresh rate so as to work with all computers, for beginners, 
as an alternative to Xvesa on 8-bit color laptops? Maybe as an add-on 
package.  Or is it not possible to have an all-purpose SVGA setup?

Not that this computer would be a good candidate for that, but we have 
486s that do 8-bit color. I



 can try to work on this some day but I want to 
compile ghostscript and SANE (0.54 - 250K instead of 3M source code) 
first.


> Cheers,
> Steven
>
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org