Live slax

[Wakou]

I have been trying to boot a computer with a live .iso with a slaxware distro. On my Laptop it stalls, with what my Windoze eyes look like a memory or HDD read/write error, (checks in progress now) On my desktop, however, it stalls with a "fatal" "Caught signal 11" server aborting"

Any clues anyone? My first guess would be.... errr who cares about my first guess, I know nothing about Linux..... help please anyone? ( this posted from windys XP (blush, shame)

[smolloy]

Did you check to make sure the download and CD burn was ok?

[Wakou]

Hi. and thanks for the reply. I d/l'ed two versions of the Live CD, One optimised for ATI GPU's (for my laptop) and one without, for the desktop. (The Distro is a Slaxware called Russix) I have not got any further with the desktop, but, after posting the original Q, I went to bed in disgust, accidently leaving the laptop on, in what I thought was a "hang" state. When I got up it had booted! I could not do much with it, and after a short while, I tried again, and lots of probs seem to be reported when trying to boot, inncluding such nonsense as / lib/def/char/ (this from vague memory).... "rocket.ko is not an elf object.."

then more elf object objections....
then it seems to hang on read write errors, on hdc... the laptop only has one hdd, so I guess this is the ramdisk tripping up?
Is there a way to save the messages that flash past on the boot screen, so I could post the errors here?

I now can boot the NON-ati disk on the (ATI) laptop
When I get the machine working it will only let me use one wireless adaptor at a time, which it labels wlan0. Is this normal? I have four, and would like to try them and compare. Three are USB atheros-based, and the other is PCMCIA Marvell Libertas.

I also have a Backtrack Live CD, which will boot, but not recognise the PCMCIA. I have a vague memory of maybe altering the ISO to include a NOPCMCIA in the boot sequence (?) Can I instruct the machine to load PCMCIA after all, or do I have to strip out the ISO and change it ?

[Wakou]

Now trying with BT3 also a slax distro....

boots fine, still won't recognise my pcmcia card....
lsusb shows the others, but iwconfig shows none....
After some research.. I found this..

If dmesg has an error similar to the following:

usb 1-1: Could not load firmware file zd1211/zd1211b_ub. Error number -2
zd1211rw 1-1:1.0: couldn't load firmware. Error number -2

This means you are missing the firmware for your device or it is located in the wrong location. The firmware is downloaded to the device each time it is initialized by the kernel module and is required for your device to operate. The typical location is /lib/firmware/zd1211. Please keep in mind that this may vary for your specific distribution. Try this location first, if that fails then seek out help from your distribution support group or review the source code of the zd1211rw module on your distribution.

On some distributions, the kernel version is included in the firmware path: /lib/firmware/<kernel version from uname -r>/zd1211. If this is the case then you may have to copy the firmware to the standard driver location or add a symbolic link. One way or another, the driver needs to be able to find the firmware.

This is Greek to me, help please..

I get precisely this error in dmesg, but have no clue how to put it right...

You can obtain the firmware from:

[Wakou]

I downloaded the firmware from the suggested location, and extracted the .tar to the /lib/firmware directory, but still get the same error. Do I have to "DO" anyhing to the firmware first? Does it have to be there when booting to become active? The file dmesg seems to be looking for is there..

(zd1211/zd1211b_ub.) but I still get a -2 error.
If it has to be there when booting, where in the iso file do I put it? Can I stop the boot and put it in manually?

If I lspci, the Marvell card is listed, but iwconfig shows nothing...

[Freston]

I never heard about Russix. I'm very sure that there are very skillful people working on that distro, but it's not mainstream so you can't expect everything to work out of the box. It probably doesn't like your hardware for some reason.

Backtrack is a specialized tool, it's a security and network analyzer. Now this is really interesting and all, and I recognize your love for the obscure, but I think it's best if you stick with the mainstream distro's until you know the difference between Slackware and Slax
That day will come, I'm sure of it. But for now, why don't you try the just released Ubuntu 8.10?? It has had special attention this time towards the wireless field. See if everything works there.


The reason I say this also is that you seem to run BT3 as LiveCD, which is alright but you'll have to make the same changes every time you boot. It remembers not a single bit between boots. And to top that, it expects you to work from the command line while doing this. No point-n-click interfaces, or not a lot if them anyway.

[Wakou]

Thank-you Freston, isn't that Don Quixote in your avatar? I feel exactly like him when trying to learn linux!

I recognize your love for the obscure, but I think it's best if you stick with the mainstream distro's until you know the difference between Slackware and Slax

The reason I am battling with "esoterica" like Backtrack and Russix is that I have finally found something I wish to do which MS windies can't and linux can (Packet injection). I tried Ubuntu a while ago. I can't remember whether it was "Flakey Fairy" "Gormless Gimp" or "Hairy Hippy" flavour, but frankly the experience was horrible, and literally nauseating, it would only allow a 800x 640 screen and some mad refresh rate like 35 Hz, after about 10 minutes of this I was feeling sick and had a headache. A few days of suffering ensued until some kindly souls on a forum just like this one (may well even have been this one) instructed me how to edit Xconf (?) with the specs of my monitor, a perfectly ordinary iiyama Vision Master Pro. I would never have got that far if I did not have a working and reliable windows box through which I could access the internet, ask forum questions, go to my monitor mfrs site for the specs etc. It seems to me quite insane that a distro which is meant to be simple should present its noobie customers with such a nasty situation. Were there ever monitors unable to cope with refresh rates higher than 35 hz? If so there cannot be many out there, surely Ubuntu could have allowed its punters to select a refresh rate wiith a warning to check that the H/W was capable?

Anyway, now to keep you up to date with my "progress" and on your toes with some more questions....

I downloaded the firmware from the suggested location, and extracted the .tar to the /lib/firmware directory, but still get the same error. Do I have to "DO" anyhing to the firmware first? Does it have to be there when booting to become active? The file dmesg seems to be looking for is there..

(zd1211/zd1211b_ub.) but I still get a -2 error.
If it has to be there when booting, where in the iso file do I put it? Can I stop the boot and put it in manually?

I have cracked this one, if anyone else is interested, put the FW files in their OWN directory in /lib/firmware so:
/lib/firmware/zd1211 This works on both Russix and Backtrack. Backtrack however does not have the full set of patched drivers, so back to the db on that one.....

If I lspci, the Marvell card is listed, but iwconfig shows nothing...

No joy here yet...

.......when I got up it had booted! I could not do much with it, and after a short while, I tried again, and lots of probs seem to be reported when trying to boot, including such nonsense as / lib/def/char/ (this from vague memory).... "rocket.ko is not an elf object.."

then more elf object objections....

Anyone know what an "elf object" is sounds like something from Lord of the Rings to me....

then it seems to hang on read write errors, on hdc... the laptop only has one hdd, so I guess this is the ramdisk tripping up?

Anyone? I ran memtest for a couple of hours, and also did a full scandisk, no problems reported.

Is there a way to save the messages that flash past on the boot screen, so I could post the errors here?

This surely must be possible! It would also be nice to switch off the "splash" screen during boot.

and lastly is there an easy and universal way to cut and paste, both from a console and from GUI's? and how do I launch a simple text editor?

One thing I love, and wish windoze could do, is that on the Russix version, the Laptop battery meter, when you mouse hover, gives an estimate of time remaining. Now I know that this cannot possibly be super-accurate, but still it is nice to know how much fuel is in the tank before the "panic and save all" msg pops up.

[Freston]

Thank-you Freston, isn't that Don Quixote in your avatar? I feel exactly like him when trying to learn linux!

Yes it is, albeit at a surprisingly low resolution (I'm lazy). I love that book, in fact 'Freston' is the evil necromancer who had transformed the raging giants into windmills to deny the Don the honor of victory.

Ah! I should have googled Russix. I now understand your approach to this better. It is *not* uninterresting. But seeing how both distro's give you issues with the wireless, an installed version still seems better suited for your purpose than a LiveCD IMHO. But that's up to you of course.

What a quick google learned me was that you will probably have better luck using the Redmond driver with ndiswrapper. The slackbook server is down atm, and so is alien's wiki (alas) but I found something about installing ndiswrapper on Slackware here.
I checked (cuz of course I have BT3 as a virtual machine... it's magic!) and BT3 comes with ndiswrapper as loadable module. So you don't need to install the ndiswrapper-package itself, just load it into the kernel with `modprobe ndiswrapper`. You still need the Redmond driver though.

Anyone know what an "elf object" is sounds like something from Lord of the Rings to me....

You'd wish It's an Executable and Linkable Format.

This surely must be possible! It would also be nice to switch off the "splash" screen during boot.

Well, for the benefit of all people who can't read that fast, there is `dmesg`. Although, there are lots of other goodies in /var/log so be sure to check that out
Specially if your concern is security, performance or just 'the general state of things under the hood'. You know you can pipe those files into filters and tools such as `less`, `grep` and those sorts of things?
For getting rid of the splash, append 'splash=verbose' or 'splash=off' as kernel parameter. In the (first) menu after BIOS, this is the lilo menu, you can append boot time parameters by pressing [tab]. You can also add here which runlevel you want as final destination. adding a "3" here will stop booting when you reach runlevel 3; textual multi-user mode.

Anyone? I ran memtest for a couple of hours, and also did a full scandisk, no problems reported.

Not as such no. If it's the issue of

Caught signal 11" server aborting"

Then you can try loading the vesa driver. You'll need to boot to runlevel 3 and edit the driver part of the device section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf and change it to vesa. No guarantee, but worth a shot.

and lastly is there an easy and universal way to cut and paste, both from a console and from GUI's? and how do I launch a simple text editor?

No, there alas isn't a universal way, unless you rightclick and select copy/paste from the menu. In the CLI paste is [shift]+[insert], in the GUI it's [ctrl]+[v]
You do have a fair share of editors, try kwrite, nano or vim.

One thing I love, and wish windoze could do, is that on the Russix version, the Laptop battery meter, when you mouse hover, gives an estimate of time remaining. Now I know that this cannot possibly be super-accurate, but still it is nice to know how much fuel is in the tank before the "panic and save all" msg pops up.

Heheh, it seems I've been away from Redmond too long. I've forgotten the little things that make live on Linux so much easier. This what you describe is a pretty common feature on any of the systems and GUI's that have acpi enabled. If you really must know, it takes its data from the pseudo-file /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state
It's not really a file, but real time kernel information accessible as where it part of the file system. Try `cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state` (your path may differ a bit)

Also, I've found it pretty accurate in general terms, and it adjusts itself for usage patterns. And the action to take when the battery level reaches fatal lowtality is of course user defined, as are the treshholds. Theoreticaly, you could set up the system so it sends you an email warning you that the battery is running out

[Wakou]

Thanks for the replies Freston, and sorry for not getting back. I shall be starting a new thread later, in "coffee lounge" for the moment and would like your opinions and feedback. Meanwhile;

Ah! I should have googled Russix. I now understand your approach to this better. It is *not* uninterresting. But seeing how both distro's give you issues with the wireless, an installed version still seems better suited for your purpose than a LiveCD IMHO. But that's up to you of course.

Well yes, and I AM moving on... see new posts....

What a quick google learned me was that you will probably have better luck using the Redmond driver with ndiswrapper. The slackbook server is down atm, and so is alien's wiki (alas) but I found something about installing ndiswrapper on Slackware here.

I checked (cuz of course I have BT3 as a virtual machine... it's magic!) and BT3 comes with ndiswrapper as loadable module. So you don't need to install the ndiswrapper-package itself, just load it into the kernel with `modprobe ndiswrapper`. You still need the Redmond driver though.

Ah ah, but windows drivers do NOT support Packet injection, and this route would defeat the whole object of the exercise!

You'd wish It's an Executable and Linkable Format.

Err thanks!

Well, for the benefit of all people who can't read that fast, there is `dmesg`. Although, there are lots of other goodies in /var/log so be sure to check that out
Specially if your concern is security, performance or just 'the general state of things under the hood'. You know you can pipe those files into filters and tools such as `less`, `grep` and those sorts of things?
For getting rid of the splash, append 'splash=verbose' or 'splash=off' as kernel parameter. In the (first) menu after BIOS, this is the lilo menu, you can append boot time parameters by pressing [tab]. You can also add here which runlevel you want as final destination. adding a "3" here will stop booting when you reach runlevel 3; textual multi-user mode.

Thanks again..

Not as such no. If it's the issue of

Caught signal 11" server aborting"

Then you can try loading the vesa driver. You'll need to boot to runlevel 3 and edit the driver part of the device section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf and change it to vesa. No guarantee, but worth a shot.

Thanks, I have sort of given up tinkering with the desktop, the risk of snafuing the system is too great, and I don't think the cat could take my mood if something bad happened.

No, there alas isn't a universal way, unless you rightclick and select copy/paste from the menu. In the CLI paste is [shift]+[insert], in the GUI it's [ctrl]+[v]
You do have a fair share of editors, try kwrite, nano or vim.

great tips, ta!,

Heheh, it seems I've been away from Redmond too long. I've forgotten the little things that make live on Linux so much easier. This what you describe is a pretty common feature on any of the systems and GUI's that have acpi enabled. If you really must know, it takes its data from the pseudo-file /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state
It's not really a file, but real time kernel information accessible as where it part of the file system. Try `cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state` (your path may differ a bit)

Also, I've found it pretty accurate in general terms, and it adjusts itself for usage patterns. And the action to take when the battery level reaches fatal lowtality is of course user defined, as are the treshholds. Theoreticaly, you could set up the system so it sends you an email warning you that the battery is running out

[Freston]

Ah ah, but windows drivers do NOT support Packet injection, and this route would defeat the whole object of the exercise!

Why then don't you just tell what you are trying to do??

I read some of your other posts and understand you are moving to SuSE. These pieces of the puzzle don't fit in my limited understanding. Sure! SuSE is as capable as the next distro, but as with Ubuntu, I see it far removed from anything I can rhyme with Russix or BT. Those distro's are good at other things

Thanks for the replies Freston, and sorry for not getting back.

No worries!

Thanks, I have sort of given up tinkering with the desktop, the risk of snafuing the system is too great, and I don't think the cat could take my mood if something bad happened.

Awwww, be nice to the poor cat! It can't help it, kiss and make friends! (And get hair in your mouth doing so, you deserve it!)