Dusting off an old rubbish laptop....

[Bigluce]

I have done a quick search here and on Google, but didn't find an answer to my issues. I do apologise if I'm rehashing an old issue...here goes:

I have an ancient Packard Bell Easyone that was due to be thrown out, but then I thought, why not see if the old girl can run again?

So I decided to put Linux on it. I terrified myself with the sheer number of distros available (given that I am a complete and utter newbie). Then I got confused with the whole i386, i486 etc thing (although I read the FAQ on that, I'm still none-the-wiser!

So I tried installing various varities, namely Ubuntu, Xubuntu, LinuxConsole (which I realised was a text-based installer - FAIL) and finally AntiX.

I firstly got CMOV errors and incorrect kernel errors, and now disc read failures.

Any ideas what I can actually install on this annoying POS before I smash it up in frustration:

AMD-K6 (tm) - 2+ Processor
550 Mhz
640kb system memory
277024kb extended memory (which I assume is the RAM at 256?)
384kb shadow ram
BIOS date 09/07/00 (Yes, I know, ANCIENT)
ROM EA37-FFFF
Display - EGA/VGA

Thanks for your help and sorry about the long-winded post!

Lucy

[rokytnji]

To avoid confusion. I deleted my post when I reread Lucys original post and saw

640kb system memory

which I mistook for ram. So. Try a AntiX

antiX-M8.5-486-update.iso

Because of the

AMD-K6 (tm) - 2+ Processor

It should boot up OK with 256MB of ram. Be sure to make a swap partition (Gparted will do this) of at least 512MB before running the gui installer.

I486 Isos

Thread

By the way. Howdy and Welcome to LFO

[rokytnji]

Booted up my Old IBM A22m Laptop that only has 256MB of ram. My processor has more grunt/speed than yours though.

harry@biker:~$ inxi -F
System:    Host biker Kernel 2.6.34-stevo i686 (32 bit) Distro antiX-M8.5 Marek Edelman 11 April 2010
CPU:       Single core Pentium III (Coppermine) (-UP-) cache 256 KB flags (sse) bmips 1992.44 clocked at 1000.00 MHz 
Graphics:  Card ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x X.Org 1.7.7 Res: 1024x768@85.0hz 
           GLX Renderer Software Rasterizer GLX Version 2.1 Mesa 7.7.1 Direct Rendering Yes
Audio:     Card Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24/30 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] driver Sound Fusion CS46xx BusID: 00:05.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.22.1
Network:   Card-1 3Com 3c556B CardBus [Tornado] driver 3c59x at port 2c00 BusID: 00:03.0
           Card-2 RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI driver rt61pci v: 2.3.0 BusID: 06:00.0
Disks:     HDD Total Size: 20.0GB (19.9% used) 1: /dev/hda IC25N020ATCS04-0 20.0GB 
Partition: ID:/ size: 5.0G used: 3.0G (64%) fs: ext3 ID:/home size: 7.7G used: 743M (11%) fs: ext3 
           ID:swap-1 size: 0.76GB used: 0.02GB (2%) fs: swap 
Info:      Processes 89 Uptime 24 min Memory 171.2/247.8MB Runlevel 5 Client Shell inxi 1.4.21 
harry@biker:~$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        253704     245064       8640          0       3588      67344
-/+ buffers/cache:     174132      79572
Swap:       738984      15420     723564

As you can see. I can run AntiX with a 2.6.34 Custom Kernel borrowed from Stevo from Mepis Lovers Forum on 256MB of ram. From screenshot below. My conky shows ram usage with Firefox 4.6 Beta opened with 4 tabs open and a terminal running also plus wireless.
screenshot-thumb.jpg

[Bigluce]

Well I'm embarrassed to admit it but I wiped the hard-drive efore I started as I wanted to install Linux over Windows as it had Win ME which we all know was total pants.....

Can you tell me how to create a partition please? When I boot, I just get a balnk screen....I guess I could put ME back on if needs be but was hoping for a gui that pretty much held my hand through the install and did all that for me? Does such a thing exist even?

[rokytnji]

When I boot, I just get a balnk screen.

Boot what? Did you download and burn the i486 iso I recommended? My handheld tutorial for AntiX install on a EEEPC below.

Yet Another Technology Site: AntiX 8.5 Full install on Asus EEEPC 900

You can use the screenshots to see what to expect the installer to look like. I made it for EEEPC. So some parts won't apply to your Packard Bell Easyone since it has a Pata drive instead of Solid State Drives.

[Bigluce]

Sorry it's late, I'm tired. I burned Anti-X (probably the wrong version come to think of it) and when I tried to boot from it to run the installer, it sat for ages reading then came back with a disk read error.

I'll try your suggestion, rok. I'll let you know how I get in over the next couple of days. Screenshots will be a huge help - so thanks for that!

[Bigluce]

OK Roc, downloaded the ISO you suggested, burned onto CD at 4x speed.

Switched laptop on with disc in, and the screen said loading stage 2......(which is where I've failed before)

It then loads the lovely Grub screen or whatever it's called - the black and white install screen. I hit enter to install AntiX........it then does something like kernel /boot / umli aux (i think that's what it says)

it does a quick check of available memory then comes back with the following error:

Can't find AntiX filesystem, sorry. Dropping you to a (very limited) shell.
Press reset to quit

/static/ash: can't access tty; job control turned off
antix# _

[rokytnji]

When you get to the boot screen. try the boot cheat codes. You type them in and they show at the bottom of screen. Instead of hitting install. Try running live session also.

Howto articles - antiX

One boot cheet code you can try is

rootdelay=20

Another reason this could be happening is either faulty cdrom drive on relic lappy or disc media. See if disk boots live on other computer.

Lastly did you verify the file integrity of downloaded iso by checking the md5sum of downloaded iso file.

Check the integrity of the downloaded file - MEPIS Documentation Wiki

Leaving you with this success story who's gear sounds a lot like yours.
antiX-forum - View topic - antix-m8.5-486 on old hardware

[rcgreen]

You probably have a bad cdrom drive. That's why you
get random errors as the installer tries to find components
it needs from the cd. It may be possible to install from an
external usb cdrom drive if you happen to have one.

[Bigluce]

Thanks for the tips - will try again in a few days and let you know. This is getting quite tiresome!