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  • From: sindi keesan <keesan AT SDF.ORG>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] USB, Ethernet, Wifi, X on Toshiba Portege laptop
  • Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 14:27:47 +0000 (UTC)

On Sat, 22 Mar 2014, James K. Banks wrote:

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 10:15 AM, sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.org> wrote:


Puppy Linux supports 'older' hardware and also the 'newer' cardbus wifi
cards. I use the PULP version which is less memory intensive, boots up
into X with 10MB RAM if you run a 'full' installation (do not load
everything into memory, install to hard drive not 'frugal'). Turbopup is
another option but it is buggy.



One of the constraints of this laptop is that it doesn't have a CDROM
drive. PULP comes as an .iso. What are my options? Would loadlin.exe

mount -o loop the .iso file and copy the .sfs file to your hard drive.
I boot puppy with loadlin from DOS, or with lilo.

work? (That's how I boot BL.) In that case, I'd extract the contents of
the .iso to a directory on C:\ and figure out what loadlin options to use.

loadlin vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz ro

for frugal install (which uses about 35MB memory to boot)

or boot as for BL (10 MB memory) after copying all the individual files from the iso to a partition such as hda2

loadlin vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro

You can also copy the .iso to the hard drive and boot with a boot floppy 'wakepup' which loads all possible drivers (CD-ROM, USB flash drive, SCSI, etc.), looks for the iso file, and boots it for you.

Or would I have to try or be better off trying a net install? The net
install would require the laptop to boot from LAN, which the BIOS says it
can do, but it would have to use a PCMCIA network card. I have one, a
cardbus Ethernet one that works in DamnSmallLinux (the one I ordered in the
mail). Would that work at boot time? (For that matter, is DSL an option?
I gave up on it a long time ago but don't remember why.)

I have not tried network boot. The original DSL is extremely out of date and uses Firefox 2 (which works with upgraded glibc in BL). Puppy is far more popular now, and has forum support for most hardware.

There is a youtube video on puppy linux and portege 7010, and a discussion of the 320CT (Puppy 4) and M300. The USB port did not work on one of these - I have the same problem on a Latitude D600 where USB works with BL2 but not Puppy. Usually there are solutions.

If you prefer BL, try the 2.4.29 kernel and modules from Puppy 1.0.7 with it - later Puppy 1 versions use ALSA sound. At a non-official site http://dotpups.de you can find all the puppy 1 and 2 versions and additional wifi modules. Read how other people got X and mouse working in linux on that hardware.

Puppy 1 can be booted with loadlin if you put all the files in c:\ (root directory) and be sure to have 512MB free for a 'save file'. Use the boot floppy or examine it for details on how to use loadlin - you need a config file in addition to the usual loadlin files. It requires more knowledge of linux than later puppy linuxes, but works on my 133MHz laptop where puppy 4 does not (read the recent BL archives for details) - I forget whether it is sound or network that did not work. It probably also uses less memory than later versions.

At dotpups.de go to pet packages 1 and 2, wifi - there is support for acx100, adm8211, atmelwlan, hostap, ipw2100, ipw2200 (these do WPA2 - has to be at least 2005),madwifi,ralink,rtl8180,zd1211.

Look up the linux driver for your cardbus card and if it needs a different one, try Puppy 2 (which has a few more drivers) or 4 not Puppy 1.

You should have hours of fun trying all this.


Sindi Keesan




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