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Sindi wrote:

Basiclinux is the only one of three linuxes I could get working on this 
laptop.  Only one of three floppy versions worked correctly (Steven's).

> 2-floppy BL3 (my modification for framebuffer) - 9 min for the first disk
> (linux filesystem, LILO) and 1 min for the second disk (a tgz file, FAT).

(I think this was a 2.2.26 framebuffer kernel, set to boot nomce.  Two 
5000 series Armadas would not boot regular BL3 because of mce problem in
kernel 2.2.27 - see archives.  These boot disks work with them, and also
have 3c589.o and airo and orinoco wireless modules, and Xfbdev).

> 1-floppy USB BL3 by David Moberg - SYSLINUX - starts booting then stops.

Stops while reading initrd.gz just under the y in copy.
Every time.  This disk has USB support but the laptop lacks USB.

> Boots to DOS at normal speed.  So does Win98.  It was sold with Win95.
>
> I tried two floppy drives.
>
> Any explanation?  I have not installed to HD yet, booted with loadlin
> (BL2), or tested with DSL live CD (syslinux)  Booted BL2 (presumably at
> normal speed) with LILO from CF-IDE drive, then the owner gave me the
> laptop without CF-IDE because he wanted something faster.

I have BL3.tgz on USB flash drive and hope to copy it via network cable
from a second laptop which does have USB port after booting from BL3 
floppy disks.

Boots BL3 original version at normal speed.  I will have to add the 
3c889.o network card module after booting (from another floppy disk).

BL2 floppies (scandisk) had gone bad so I made another set but forgot
to sys disk1.  Now disk2 is bad....  Floppies fail frequently.
How do I scandisk with linux?

CL video chip, 1MB RAM, Xvesa but not framebuffer.  My modified version
is set to do framebuffer.  Xvesa works here.

Booting live CD linuxes required attaching the base station, which has its 
own power supply jack and covers up the regular power supply jack. It kept 
going off randomly and had to be taken apart and soldered. Setup did not 
allow boot from CD (did not try Smart Boot Manager, which failed in my 
166MHz DELL) so I used DSL and Puppy boot floppy disks, which booted.

DSL cannot find the specified video mode (framebuffer) but does boot, 
however it drops me into a limited shell.  No graphics or much else.
Puppy complained about a problem with himem until I told it to boot 
without graphics, then gave me several hda and DMA errors, disabled DMA 
three times, and booted to a very limited shell.

The LCD monitor does only 256 colors (card puts out more) so I had to 
manually edit /etc/Xconfig to get 800x600(x4).  Please add this choice to 
future BLs.  I have another 120MHz Compaq with only 256 color screen.

> 120MHz 1997 with CD-ROM drive in base station. The base station has a
> MIDI/GAME port and better speakers, which would make this ideal for use
> with BL3, Rosegarden and Timidity for libc5, and my 1986 Yamaha electronic
> (midi) piano.  Even came with two (!) working 'handle' batteries.
> Someone kindly posted take-it-apart and keyboard repair instructions with
> lots of photos.  The keyboard connector needs frequent cleaning and the
> CMOS battery was dead.  Said to work with older Debian and Redhat. BL3
> floppy works once it boots. 11" screen, lightweight, thin.
>
> After the 10 min boot, 3com PCMCIA network card works so I can copy
> BL3 from another laptop.
>
> Sindi Keesan
>
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Sindi Keesan