Baslinux mailing list

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

> (I replied offlist, but another idea has occurred to me. Redhat, at least, has
> mtools, which includes mformat. That program makes a DOS partition; I don't
> know if it can put the system files on.)

The Redhat on this computer does not include mtools.  And I read that 
mtools mformat only works on floppy disks, not hard drives.

But thanks for the idea.  Everyone had a different idea.

Eventually two of them worked.

I think this is one of those computer/parallel ports which is not going to 
work with plip.  I had an mda/parport card that would not work either. 
Maybe I need to insmod parport_pc with a specific io?

There are some odd things going on with the computer.

Syschk said we needed to add D=48 to the emm386 line - that worked.
We have done that on other computers (D=64)

The iomega program complained about an internal overflow (we were loading 
the CD-ROM drivers first - it worked without them) so we added 
stacks=18,256 in config.sys

I loaded the cd rom driver and other things high, after loading himem.sys 
and emm386, and nothing at all went into high memory.
So this computer is a bit odd even in DOS.

When I set up plip and try to ping the computer itself (ping the number I 
assigned it)

Redhat 7.0 - 'No buffer space available'  (I did not repeat this after 
changing config.sys - I don't think it makes a difference)
SW4.0 could ping itself.

Neither of them would ping the other computer even after I
changed CMOS parport from ECP to SPP ('normal').

Along the way I tried mini_httpd and again:
socket:  connection refused
can't bind to any socket
What is a socket?  Some sort of port such as ethernet or parallel?

This is irrelevant since I had no plip connection.
It worked if I had an ethernet card insmodded at that sending end.

Redhat would not let me insmod the two scsi modules needed to use the 
parport zip drive.  SW40 already had parport and parport_pc (maybe in the 
kernel?) and let me insmod the scsi modules and imm and found sda4.

I transferred llpro and a few other DOS files to the C: that I had 
formatted with oformat from Win98 recovery disk.

I then transfered with llpro some DOS directories including BL2 ramdisk 
and BL3.  For once BL3 fs.img copied perfectly so I did not need to 
transfer via the zip drive.

Is there anything else I can try to get plip working on that computer? 
Slip would be rather slow.  I want to put BL2 in the 128MB former swap 
partition where SW40 is temporarily installed, now that I have BL's in DOS 
to work with, but only selected directories, one at a time, deleting parts 
after they are transferred, to make space.  No compiler or associated 
libraries, source code, etc.  16MB RAM.

Or I can format a zip disk for linux and copy 100MB with that.

A list member's kid brother wants his own parport zip drive now. 
Handy for working with old hardware and software.

First two times I booted, before fixing the lines in config.sys, startx 
with 640x480x24-bit, after some rather odd color effects, eventually put 
me into the usual turquoise screen with mouse pointer but no sign of icewm 
(or swm).  I tried scrolling around in case it was a virtual screen. 
Ctrl-ESC, Enter did not give me an rxvt.

But after I added D=64 and more stacks in config.sys, when I rebooted it 
worked fine.  Goes to 800x600x16 or probably more (2MB video RAM).

This is Chips and Technology 2MB RAM VESA 2.0 so might even work with 
David's framebuffer kernel.  But it is happy with Xvesa.  THe last Chips 
and TEch only gave 4 colors with Xvesa and needed a special modeline for 
xsvga server.

We plan to use this to download photos (parallel and serial ports and USB 
since pcmcia so far won't work, tho we did not try other cards yet, just 
ethernet).  And edit with netpbm and maybe xv.  And upload or at least 
transfer to other computers (via zip disk or llpro).

Have not tried svgalib yet (zgv).

I need to learn to format a zip disk for linux (with iomega utilities).

Hitachi 133MHz.