problem logging into vector linux website

[ejames82]

rok,

thanks for the tidbit of information. my wife is responsible for bringing both thinkpads into the house and also the pcmcia cards. the place that she works at wanted them gone. i guess the pcmcia card was just laying on the floor. i don't remember a whole lot about it, only that it had an ethernet plug-in and that's how the internet sandwich was fed to it. otherwise, i wouldn't even know what a pcmcia card is. connectivity is definitely not my strong suit. i will keep that in mind though, i have somehow been able to make old stuff keep working. believe it or not, usually most of the job is cleaning the dust out, finding a fan that works and reseating the memory.
i checked out tinycore linux, burnt the disk, but was unable to install. i even posted at the tinycore forum. this time it wasn't me, it was the computer, and so far nobody knows why. i ran ragged getting them the info they wanted for examination. there was no internet connection. it was kinda tough, i am not really good at the terminal. i have found that each computer i have favors certain distros for no rhyme or reason.
thanks, rok

[rokytnji]

i have found that each computer i have favors certain distros for no rhyme or reason.

That is not a unusual thing to have happen. Curious about why Tiny Core wouldn't boot. Was it because the said computer you tried to install to was I486 instead of i386 maybe?

[ejames82]

"Curious about why Tiny Core wouldn't boot. Was it because the said computer you tried to install to was I486 instead of i386 maybe?"
the computer i put damn small linux on is a gateway G6-350 (the one with the pentiumII). my wife was happy with a dual boot installation of damn small with crunchbang. i can always put tinycore on it later (if i'm lucky). i think her plan is to bring it (the pentiumII) to her job and show it off and say "this old computer cost $10 at a yard sale and infections don't hurt it", and let the old folks have at it (and show it off to her boss). computers at her job (windows) are constantly being taken down due to infection.

i put a more modern computer into action. this is the one i'm trying to put tinycore on. this particular computer is an hp pavillion 510c. i may have the actual hardware specs written down somewhere, so i don't know what cpu it has.
what happens when installing to hard drive is a bunch of commands and then copying of bzImage and tinycore.gz files and the computer locked up on the bzImage file. it looks like that hurdle has been cleared, but other snags keep popping up. my lack of knowledge of the command line is most of the problem.
i can definitely see the benefit of a high quality small OS. there's alot about tinycore that is impressive. the appsbrowser program is shockingly easy. i haven't been using linux long enough to be set in my ways, so i can be flexible rather easily.
maybe i should check to see what cpu i have here.
thanks rok.

[rokytnji]

Pentium II and above should be i386. It is the K9 processors (I think, I can't swear to it) Penium I that are the i486 ones.

Yeah, it sounds like you are struggling with making a viable bootable image of tiny core which is just not burn and boot like SliTaz or DSL is.

I run AntiX 8.5 which is Debian Squeeze with lightweight Desktops and runs great on Pentium II or Pentium III with 256mb of ram with a 512mb swap partition. I settled on it as one of my favorite distros to run like a Arch user likes Arch Linux.

[D-cat]

The definition of Pentium is i586. ("Five" is the "Pent").
PII up is i686.

AMD K5 is the Pentium equivalent, so above that... you get the idea.

i386 and i486 are just that, it's a reference to their instruction set abilities. SX is a single processor, DX has an embedded math co-processor. DX2 and DX4 had sort of electronic gearing effect, 2 or 4x processing speed but it was taken out in I/O. Good for gaming in their era. The highest I remember seeing of each was 386 DX/66 and 486 DX4/100.

Early P75's had a floating devision error. This was discovered and fixed, but some buggy processors are still floating around.

[ejames82]

the computer i installed tinycore on yesterday has a celeron 1.3gh cpu. i would guess that it is a i686 processor (just guessing). plenty powerful enough for tinycore. somehow tinycores installation disks bzImage file didn't like it.

rok,

"Yeah, it sounds like you are struggling with making a viable bootable image of tiny core"
i told you i wanted it, and i wasn't kidding, lol. after getting it on the 15gb, i also installed it on a 40gb immediately afterwards. those guys there are great.

"which is just not burn and boot like SliTaz or DSL is."
i will get slitaz on a hard drive soon. you're right though.

"I run AntiX 8.5 which is Debian Squeeze with lightweight Desktops
and runs great on Pentium II"
i've tried antix. i remember a few things about it. it had a holocaust scene as an intro, it had a nice forest/mountain side type desktop, and the icons were way to small. something about it didn't work right though, right now i can't remember what it was. i heard "sidux" is a debian-related distro. i was able to install sidux on a hard drive. it actually worked reliably. i can't recall anything ever going wrong while using it (sidux). what does "squeeze" mean?

"I settled on it as one of my favorite distros to run like a Arch user likes Arch Linux"
i installed arch, but had difficulty setting up the desktop environment. arch is not for a newbie. i'll tell you a really tough one, skolelinux. i tried installing that one and after about 15 questions, i was speechless. the toughest one i've seen so far.


D-cat,

i remember reading about that "floating division" error. i thought it was a "floating decimal" error. wasn't it intel that had that problem? in any case i remember hearing that corporations sometimes lost a lot of money because of that.


thanks for the replies.

[D-cat]

I believe it was specific to division.

Interesting, according to Wiki, a lot more chips were affected than I knew about.

[rokytnji]

"squeeze" mean?

codename for the upcoming 6.0 release of the Debian/GNU Linux operating system.

[ejames82]

D-cat,
thanks. i stand corrected.

rok,
i always wondered what was meant by that. did debian ever make a live/install cd that is easy like ubuntu?
thanks.