Jednjayn

I recently downloaded& burned SM 6.0. LiveCD fired up great except the resolution was at 640x400 & couldn't get it any higher. I read up on how to change w/ consol but wondered if it will work with livecd. I have Mepis 2003.10 dualboot w/WinXP and want to put new one in. I'm afraid I'll have a problem clicking the right places on install tabs. Also. I work dualboot w/a floppy so no MBR change. I got the option while installing 2003.10. Will I get this option w/6.0? I also saw different boot options but the floppy I have now reads "Searching for LILO bootloader" in BIOS screen then it fires up. Thanks for all replies.

saikee

My advice is generic although I run Mepis but am not fully aware of its features.

If you don't like the resolution of a Live CD you can change it by the following ways

(1) In the desktop (video driver may have been fixed) alter the resolution and scanning frequencies of the monitor. The scope of change is limited if the video driver has been mismatched.

(2) press ctrl+alt+backspace to drop back into th terminal mode. Most recent distros has a Xwindow configurator called "xorgconfig". You can invoke it by just typing the name and be able to configure the mouse, keyboard, video card, resolution and scanning frequencies. When you save the file, which is called /etc/X11/xorg.conf, you can return back to the desktop by issuing the command "startx". You can repeat the process as many times as you want untill everything is ideal.

(3) You can edit the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf to amend the configuration settings directly. This is the quickest but you do need to know the video driver name, scanning frequencies etc.

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On booting via a floppy this is your God given right in Linux. The problem is to know how to achieve it.

This is how

(a) When you install Mepis make sure you instruct the installer to put the boot loader in the root partition and not the MBR. When the installation completes Mepis will not boot yet.

(b) You then reboot using the same Live CD to get the Live CD version of Mepis in the memory. I believe Mepis always uses Grub but if your copy doesn't then follow the Task B3 of this thread and use "fd0" instead of "hda" as the destination. If your Mepis uses Grub then you can get a bootable floppy of Mepis by the following commands at the terminal after boot up to the Mepis Live CD, I assume the root partition of your installed Mepis is hda3 which will be known as (hd0,2) to Grub as Grub counts from 0, adjust it according to suit your circumstance
Basically you invoke a Grub shell with the boot up Mepis, tell Grub the root of the Linux you are interested is in the 3rd partition of the 1st disk and command Grub to install itself the the device "fd0". After that you exit Grub and tell the boot up Mepis to reboot. The floppy in the drive will boot up Mepis from now on. There is no need to pre-format the floppy too.

Good luck

Jednjayn

Thanks for the advice Saikee. Off work today due to bum leg so I'm gonna give it a try. Hopefully my next post will be out of Mepis6.0.

JoeC

When you first boot the live cd, at the screen where you can choose what option you want to boot into, hit F3 and you can try to select a higher resolution from there.

Jednjayn

I was able to get screen res. working but can't get GRUB to floppy. Tried installing from LiveCD & got "creating menu.1st failed". (I'm on LCD now).Tried advice from Saikee & still no go. May try reinstall to see if something goofed on 1st try.

saikee

Duplicating Grub on a floppy is one of the easiest thing to do.

In a nutshell Grub requires from a partition say sda3 known to Grub as (hd0,2) to have 4 files inside its /boot/grub directory. The 4 files are

(1) stage1
(2) stage2
(3) stage1.5, optional as Grub can survive without it
(4) menu.lst, optional without it Grub just defaults to a Grub prompt.

The menu.lst can be symbolic-linked to grub.conf which is used by the Red Hat family. Mepis uses menu.lst

At any Grub prompt (from a bootable Grub floppy) or Grub shell (invoked from a Live CD or even after changed-root into an unbootable Linux) these commands will make the bootable floppy
If the menu.lst is defective you can press "c" key at the Grub boot screen to drop into a Grub prompt (terminal mode with Grub). In a Grub prompt you can boot any system manually. I repeat you can boot "any operating system manually".

Jednjayn

When I tried in the terminal it said bad paths(?), something about wrong partition parameters(?), I wish I'd written down exact messages. When I installed I told it to put GRUB in root; with the LCD I mounted Linux partition & didn't see it in root but it was in the boot file. My HDD has 3 partitions for XP (gonna redo that soon) and a 5gig linux part. I'll try making boot floppy again; if no luck I'll reinstall again. Thanks for reply & wish me luck.

Jednjayn

I finally got the boot floppy working & need to say DUH!!! I need to learn how to count again. Linux is at hda7, & forgot to start count at 0 not 1. So, any how , thanks for all the help. Now, time to play!