antiX installed on HP Omni Book 4150

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-19 16:36

Hello everyone,

I'm new to antiX and I just installed it on a very old laptop: 366MHz PII with 64MB of RAM and 4.5GB of HDD.

First thing first, that laptop has no optical devices (CD-ROM is dead), no floppy, no LAN, nothing except an USB Port but of course the BIOS doesn't boot from USB (had to use Plop but didn't work for me). Having that said, please be informed that I installed antiX this way:

I took the HDD out of the laptop
connected to my PC
Installed antiX from there
put the HDD back inside the laptop

I had very hard time with that laptop. I was unable to get it up and running for the last two weeks or may be more. I have tried with 20 distributions but couldn't install any until now. The only way was connecting the HDD to another PC and install from there then get it back in that laptop.

I did lots of things with many distributions and it's a 2 weeks experience so it's very long story indeed. Long story short, I have antiX installed and the HDD is inside the laptop but when I turn the laptop on, I got this error message:

Warning: bootdevice may be renamed. Try root=/dev/hda1

*some instructions*

dev/sda1 does not exist.

/bin/sh: can't access tty: job control turned off
(initramfs)

I have 3 partitions:
sda1 = root (3GB)
sda2 = home (1GB)
sda3 = swap (512MB)

I think it's worth mentioning that I tried to install:
SliTaz
Vector
and couple of other distributions while the HDD was connected to my PC but every time I restart after installation, I got a different error message. The only time I was able to restart and get the OS up and running was when I installed Ubuntu 10.04. However I had to reboot 3-4 times until I got Ubuntu desktop as I was getting something like: MYNAME-desktop login: with"Ubuntu login tty1
As you know, Ubuntu 10.04 doesn't work with 64MB of RAM so I removed it.

As for antiX, it didn't work either after I installed it and while the HDD is attached to my PC so I took it off and connected back to the laptop. I thought it's better to try it from there. I didn't work.

I'm so much tired of trying for so many days for so many hours with no hope to get this ancient machine to work and breath new Linux Life.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Thank you!

anticapitalista · posted: 2010-11-19 21:29

At the boot login screen, change root=/dev/hda1 to root=/dev/sda1 or vice-versa

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-19 21:32

anticapitalista wrote:At the boot login screen, change root=/dev/hda1 to root=/dev/sda1 or vice-versa

Guess I did but it didn't work. However, I'm going to do it again.

Thank you __{{emoticon}}__

anticapitalista · posted: 2010-11-19 21:37

If you can post your /boot/grub/menu.lst and /boot/grub/device.map

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-19 21:41

anticapitalista wrote:If you can post your /boot/grub/menu.lst and /boot/grub/device.map

All what I got is:

Code: Select all

(initramfs)

When I tried with

Code: Select all

root=/dev/hda1

I got (initramfs) again.

Is there anyway to post that? how would I access these two files while I'm on (initramfs) ?

anticapitalista · posted: 2010-11-19 22:23

It will be very difficult to post since you don't have a cd, floppy, or bootable usb device __{{emoticon}}__
In fact it is very difficult to do anything on that box.

When you installed antiX, you did install grub into the MBR?

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-19 22:26

anticapitalista wrote:It will be very difficult to post since you don't have a cd, floppy, or bootable usb device __{{emoticon}}__
In fact it is very difficult to do anything on that box.

When you installed antiX, you did install grub into the MBR?

Definitely I installed GRUB in the MBR __{{emoticon}}__

You were right about changing dev/sda1 to dev/hda1 but I was doing it the wrong way. Actually, it's already mentioned but didn't know where exactly to change that.

I did something and I got rid of"(initramfs)" now.

I restarted the laptop, while on stage 1.5, I got GRUB menu with"antiX" as an entry to choose. At the bottom of the menu, there's an"Boot Option" and when I changed"dev/sda1" to"dev/hda1", I got some lines of commands and now I'm on

root@MYNAME: ~#

However, I still need to figure out what to do next?!

Edit:

Boot Options: root=/dev/sda1 nomce quiet nosplash vga=791

I changed it to root=/dev/hda1 nomce quiet nosplash vga=791

and got rid of (initramfs)

anticapitalista · posted: 2010-11-19 22:31

What does typing
startx
do

anticapitalista · posted: 2010-11-19 22:33

Also, what version of antiX are you using?

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-19 22:40

anticapitalista wrote:What does typing
startx
do

Got lots of stuff

Code: Select all

mktemp: failed to create file via template `/tmp/serverauth.XXXXXXXX`: Read-only file system
.
.
.
.
X: cannot stat /tmp/.X11-unix (No such file or directory), aborting.
Given up.
Xinit: No such file or directory (errno 2): unable to connect to X server
Xinit: No such process (errn 3): Server error
Xauth: error in locking authority file /root/.Xauthority

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-19 22:42

anticapitalista wrote:Also, what version of antiX are you using?

antiX M-8.5

anticapitalista · posted: 2010-11-19 22:49

I have to go now (it's past midnight here)

Did you login as root? If so, why? Try logging in with your username.

Also if you are logged in as root, does apt-get update show anything?
What about trying
apt-get update
apt-get install xorg

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-20 08:35

anticapitalista wrote:I have to go now (it's past midnight here)

Did you login as root? If so, why? Try logging in with your username.

Also if you are logged in as root, does apt-get update show anything?
What about trying
apt-get update
apt-get install xorg

I appreciate your help and I know it was too late last night __{{emoticon}}__

I can't login otherwise. I have to login as root as it asked me to do so for maintenance. I can't do anything but providing the root password.

As for the commands, I tried them all but I got error message like this command doesn't exist or file doesn't exist, etc. I can't connect to the internet anyway unless (at least) I could login to the desktop.

When it comes to CLI, I'm beyond a beginner here __{{emoticon}}__ I spent so much time with Windows and GUI so I'm still learning about CLI.

I'm so fed up from that laptop ... not sure what else I haven't tried yet?!

Thank you again __{{emoticon}}__

Schnake · posted: 2010-11-20 09:18

Well, i installed my Laptop on the same method, and its worked by me....

One more hint: If u install AntiX on your HDD, put the internal HDD from your pc off, and make sure that u install the GRUB (otherwise install it again).

Then on Boot menu, u not need to go on the GRUB menu and try to change it on there, not worked by me too...

I only can change it on the"Boot screen" where i can select what i want to boot and on the text field at end of Display stand root=/dev/sda1 nomce quiet nosplash vga=791

U need to start the GUI manually then on the Terminal

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-20 12:20

Schnake wrote:Well, i installed my Laptop on the same method, and its worked by me....

One more hint: If u install AntiX on your HDD, put the internal HDD from your pc off, and make sure that u install the GRUB (otherwise install it again).

That's exactly what I did. I made sure the internal HDD of my PC is off and not connected before I start the installation. As for GRUB, I installed it in the MBR.

Then on Boot menu, u not need to go on the GRUB menu and try to change it on there, not worked by me too...
I only can change it on the"Boot screen" where i can select what i want to boot and on the text field at end of Display stand

root=/dev/sda1 nomce quiet nosplash vga=791

That's exactly what I did. I changed it from there"root=/dev/sda1 nomce quiet nosplash vga=791" but still nothing.

U need to start the GUI manually then on the Terminal

[/quote]
I would if I could but again, nothing happened __{{emoticon}}__