Which distro for AMDk6 with 128meg RAM

Diss

Diss

Diss

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Joined
28 Oct 2002
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Hi

I have an old AMDk6 with 128meg RAM and my Ubuntu Dapper live CD wouldn't boot - i assume cos it doesn't like K6??

Anyway, the PC will be for my mother in law and i just need to put a modem in it so she can surf and do emails. Any suggestions for a user friendly linux distro for an old system like this?

thanks

Diss
 
Hi BillytheImpaler

What does DSL refer to?

Also - i may have more problems than i thought in that i can't boot anything (i also tried an old win98 CD assuming they are bootable??) from the CD - i just get a boot failure message

Thanks

Diss
 
DSL is Damn Small Linux, a distro designed to run on older hardware.

Specifically what error does it give when you try to boot a CD? I don't think all W98 CDs were bootable.
 
As an ex owner of your spec machine, there are a few issues you should be aware of.

Use i586 optimisations, because i686 might run but adds no speed.

There is one instruction which barfs on these machines, largely because K6 implements it much faster than Pentiums. /scratches head.
Symptoms:
If windows throws up "Failed to initialise device: IOS" this is your problem. There used to be a patch on the M$ site. Similarly, linux had issues, but they were patched in the kernel within a week. This problem was particularly related to the k6-350, but appeared in all k6-2 cpus.

You can usually change the boot order in the BIOS. Specify
1. Floppy
2. CDROM
3. HDD-0
and you can usually leave it alone that way, and boot whatever you want.

Don't neglect older distributions from around the time, which ran in the smaller overhead. You'll do all business stuff fine - gaming is a different story.
 
thanks for all the help guys - sorry to take so long on replying

===================================
a bit more info in case it helps:
It is a K6-2/300 with 128meg ram
Asus P5A-B BIOS revison 1010
Award Bios 1.0a
===================================

Bios is set to boot from CDROM/A/C

When it boots i get the following messages:

"Initialising MBA" press ctr/alt/b to configure
if i do that there is a section called "Boot Method" which is set to "PXE" - the other options here are TCPIP/Netware/RPL

It then says "Press N to boot from Network"

After all this i then get this message:
"Boot from ATAPI CDROM : Failure........."
and win98 starts to boot from the C drive
I have tried 3 different Linux live CDs and a win98 CD all with the same effect
==========================================

I am currently downloading dsl-3.0.1.iso - hope this will be OK if i can get the damn CD to boot
==============================================

business.kid - not sure i undertand what sort of patch you are referring to - a BIOS patch? Can you explain whats needed in more detail (sorry). I found this <<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192841/EN-US/>> but it seems to refer to win95 or maybe even a different problem

I would add that whilst win98 is on there it is mainly unusable as the previous owner seems to have deleted things like internet and windows explorer!

Thanks all

Diss
 
Hi

on the distro's cd you should find a folder called img in there should be some image files, one should be for a cd. use rawrite in windows to write it to a floppy disk, boot from floppy with the linux cd in the drive should then be able to boot from the cd.

Cheers
Deano
 
Hi

as it's only going to be used for emails and internet i would probably go with DSL, or you could try xubuntu. Or just plain old Debian.

But defo give DSL a go first, should be pretty nippy :D

think after having DLS installed your find Dapper a bit SLOW, would probably need to up the ram to 256mb really.

Modem wise see if you can get an external one, serial port type, you should have no problems with one of those in linux.

cheers
Deano
 
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thanks

just booting the dapper live CD now - its taking ages :(

will try DSL i think - trouble is i think the modem is a PCI one - haven't got it yet, got to take it out of her old PC tomorrow

thanks

Diss

edit - is DSL a liveCD - i am not sure?
 
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Hi

if it's a hardware internal modem you "should" be ok, see if it's dected during boot or if it boots to quick once at the desktop start a terminal and do:-

demsg>dmesg.txt

then read through the dmesg.txt. file, should put it into device /dev/modem
and use wvdial to configure your connection settings

cheers
deano
 
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Diss said:
...

edit - is DSL a liveCD - i am not sure?
Click to expand...

yes it is, but it has the option to install to the HD from the live boot if you want to.

actually, there are multiple options for installing, full, frugal etc, you're probably best off trawling the DSL forums for info regarding installs.

the short of it is, with DSL you don't really need to install at all. you can easily set it up to boot from CD (or floppy + CD) and just have a small hdd partition to save your files (email, docs, favourites etc). in fact you don't need a hard drive at all, you can store your personal files on an attached usb stick.

if your hardware supports it, DSL can boot from a USB pen stick. I had a laptop running DSL a while ago, booting from a 256Mb Compact flash card in a usb adapter, and stored all my data on the CF card too. the clever bit was that if i went somewhere without my laptop, i could "borrow" someone elses PC, boot it from my usb memory into "My operating system" and have all my files, email, etc all setup and just working. I could carry my virtual PC and data in my pocket, and just borrow hardware to boot it up on.

:)
 
thanks all
having trouble with modem - not sure its detected - does this help?

our dummy device 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 599.65 BogoMIPS
Memory: 223416k/229360k available (1371k kernel code, 5560k reserved, 561k data, 140k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Enabling old style K6 write allocation for 223 Mb
CPU: L1 I Cache: 32K (32 bytes/line), D cache 32K (32 bytes/line)
CPU: After generic, caps: 008001bf 808009bf 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 008001bf 808009bf 00000000 00000000
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
Checking for popad bug... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch ([email protected])
mtrr: detected mtrr type: none
CPU: L1 I Cache: 32K (32 bytes/line), D cache 32K (32 bytes/line)
CPU: After generic, caps: 008001bf 808009bf 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 008001bf 808009bf 00000000 00000000
CPU0: AMD-K6(tm) 3D processor stepping 00
per-CPU timeslice cutoff: 182.87 usecs.
SMP motherboard not detected.
Local APIC not detected. Using dummy APIC emulation.
Waiting on wait_init_idle (map = 0x0)
All processors have done init_idle
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040326
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xf0720, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: ACPI tables contain no PCI IRQ routing entries
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Using IRQ router ALI [10b9/1533] at 00:07.0
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: Card 'Crystal Codec'
isapnp: 1 Plug & Play card detected total
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
VFS: Disk quotas vdquot_6.5.1
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xe7000000, mapped to 0xce80d000, size 3072k
vesafb: mode is 1024x768x16, linelength=2048, pages=1
vesafb: protected mode interface info at c000:7aa0
vesafb: scrolling: redraw
vesafb: directcolor: size=0:5:6:5, shift=0:11:5:0
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48
fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
Detected PS/2 Mouse Port.
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 100000K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ALI15X3: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:0f.0
ALI15X3: chipset revision 193
ALI15X3: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xd400-0xd407, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xd408-0xd40f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio
hda: SAMSUNG SV0432A, ATA DISK drive
hdb: ST31220A, ATA DISK drive
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
hdc: PHILIPS CDRW2412A, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: FX3400S, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
hda: 8421840 sectors (4312 MB) w/482KiB Cache, CHS=524/255/63
hdb: attached ide-disk driver.
hdb: 2116296 sectors (1084 MB) w/256KiB Cache, CHS=524/64/63
Partition check:
hda: hda1
hdb: hdb1
ide: late registration of driver.
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
Initializing Cryptographic API
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 16384)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 314k freed
EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
hdc: attached ide-scsi driver.
hdd: attached ide-scsi driver.
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
Vendor: PHILIPS Model: CDRW2412A Rev: P1.5
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Vendor: MITSUMI Model: CD-ROM FX3400S!B Rev: u01
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr1 at scsi0, channel 0, id 1, lun 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 40x/40x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
sr1: scsi3-mmc drive: 34x/34x cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
cdrom: open failed.
cdrom: open failed.
cdrom: open failed.
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
cloop: Initializing cloop v2.01
cloop: loaded (max 8 devices)
cloop: /cdrom/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX: 1891 blocks, 65536 bytes/block, largest block is 65552 bytes.
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
Freeing unused kernel memory: 140k freed
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10f
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16)
Linux Kernel Card Services 3.1.22
options: [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
Intel ISA PCIC probe: not found.
Databook TCIC-2 PCMCIA probe: not found.
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 19:48:59 Apr 17 2004
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usb.c: deregistering driver usbdevfs
usb.c: deregistering driver hub
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
PCI: Found IRQ 12 for device 00:02.0
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:02.0 to 64
usb-ohci.c: USB OHCI at membase 0xceb7f000, IRQ 12
usb-ohci.c: usb-00:02.0, ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usbdevfs: remount parameter error
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 [PCSPP,TRISTATE,EPP]
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:0a.0
3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
See Documentation/networking/vortex.txt
00:0a.0: 3Com PCI 3c905C Tornado at 0xd800. Vers LK1.1.18-ac
00:04:76:9a:22:12, IRQ 10
product code 4d57 rev 00.13 date 07-12-01
Internal config register is 1800000, transceivers 0xa.
8K byte-wide RAM 5:3 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/Autonegotiate interface.
MII transceiver found at address 24, status 782d.
Enabling bus-master transmits and whole-frame receives.
00:0a.0: scatter/gather enabled. h/w checksums enabled
ad1848/cs4248 codec driver Copyright (C) by Hannu Savolainen 1993-1996
ad1848: WSS/SB detected
ad1848: ISAPnP reports 'WSS/SB' at i/o 0x534, irq 5, dma 1, 3
cs4232: set synthio and synthirq to use the wavefront facilities.
Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff Hartmann
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 176M
agpgart: Detected Ali M1541 chipset
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xe0000000
cdrom: open failed.
cdrom: open failed.
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <[email protected]>
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
cdrom: open failed.
cdrom: open failed.
CSLIP: code copyright 1989 Regents of the University of California
PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
 
also, when configuring the dialup it only listed COM ports
- my modem is PCI
if i try dialing i get this (though its not plugged into the phone socket at the moment)

hmmmm - how do i copy stuff from bash in DSL?

Diss

edit

i can copy into Ted but can't seem to paste into this forum :(
 
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