Baslinux mailing list

[baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org]

1.  My larger 2.4.31 kernels panic when I try to boot to ext2 (with 
lilo or loadlin) in a computer to which we added a USB card readr robbed 
from a dead eMachine (plugged into USB header onboard).

They get upset about sda (USB port). If I plug in a USB flash drive, they 
accept sda and get upset about sdb (the SD card reader).  I presume if we
put a card in each slot it would work.  sdc is CF.

My pda kernel (bzimapda), compiled specially with some feature to work 
with USB PDAs, probably compiled-in USB storage (you cannot add the 
modules later in 2.4.31 due to some bug)  works in this setup and 
recognizes sda1 without loading modules.  If it would help anyone I can 
try to fix my larger kernel to work in this situation.

2.  We were given to recycle a 2005 2.8GHz Intel desktop that mostly 
needed a lot of dust removed (i865 video, no svgalib - it may work with 
Xvesa but there is an AGP slot) and we robbed some parts out of another 
case and got it going, but the floppy controller seems to be dead and it 
will read (with Puppy linux) but not boot from USB floppy drive.  USB boot 
is enabled - can BL be booted (with loadlin) from a USB flash drive if we 
format and sys it and put the files on it?  What modules would BL need to 
read USB from floppy? Don't really need a floppy drive to install BL but I 
wanted to test first to make sure it works.

We stuck into a slightly remodeled case from a 5.25" 1.44MB floppy drive 
an external USB card reader that plugs into a USB port, screwed that into 
a bay, and can run the cable out a hole in the case to plug into a USB 
port, obviating the boot problem of the other computer.  The idea is to 
plug it alternately into the PC and the Mac for file transfer.

I suggested a network cable instead and httpd or ftpd in BL for one-way 
transfer.  Crossover or with a hub.  Hopefully OS 10.4 also has a web or 
ftp server.

Another option is a firewire PCI card, with a 20GB ipod (with dead 
battery) used as a storage drive.  Has anyone used firewire with BL?
Firewire is faster than USB 1.0.  Is it faster than 100MBit ethernet?

The G3 Mac has built-in wireless and we have a wireless PCI card.
Which is faster:  firewire, wireless B, or 100Mbit wired ethernet?
(USB 1 is slower than firewire).

My partner wants to scan slides.  The slide scanner works badly with XP
and beautifully with SANE.  Plug in and turn on before booting computer.
Scsi scanner, Mac no longer has scsi ports, BL in a PC supports scsi well.


3.  All the LCD monitors we tested were unable to display with svgalib.
Wrong frequency.  They seem to want 60Hz.  Some video cards (Matrox, S3 
Savage) are not usable with these monitors - things are offscreen, various 
modes of X or the DOS video diagnostic program or framebuffer won't 
display at all.  ATI and Nvidia work well.

Do newer LCD monitors do more frequencies?

CRTs display text much better.  LCDs are fine in X.  The same monitor with
DVI cable displayed up to 1280, and with VGA cable up to 1400.

Sindi Keesan