Hi, I'm new here, so please bear with me.

Anyways, I recently dug out my old computer that had windows me on it, and decided that I would try and get some use out of it. So I wiped the Hard Drive, and I've been fiddling with Live CD distros, like Slax (didn't work); Slitaz (worked, but too slow for me); and AntiX.

I was able to get on AntiX for about 15 minutes until it froze, I really enjoyed the feel of it, so I rebooted and decided I would do a full install.

I turn the computer back on, and it starts to load, but all I have is the mouse (which barely moves), the status menu thing in the top left, and the wallpaper. I don't have a menu at the bottom, nor do I have the ability to right click.

I downloaded AntiX-M8.iso from a link on the main website, so I'm not sure if that's the problem.

Also, my system specs (to my knowledge) are as follows:
Pentium II Processor, 333MHz I believe.
94 MB SDRAM.
8 GB HDD

As you can see, I'm not exactly working with much.

So if anyone knows of either an older version of AntiX that would work fine, or if there's another iso I should download, that would be great.

Slitaz (worked, but too slow for me);

I am gathering from that statement that you are talking about running a live CD.

Since ram is woe fully low. You might try making a 512 MB swap Partition first using Gparted in Sltiaz or AntiX first. Then see how running live cd works for you. In AntiX. I would choose Fluxbox rox pinboard desktop at slim login (F1 key). You will have to logout first to get to slim login screen though. Login as 'demo', password = 'demo'. For root access, password = 'root'. Please do not login as root. It is totally unnecessary.

On my IBM 390 E when I had it before I sold it with AntiX installed and running. It was a 333HZ, 256MB ram (I bumped up ram from 128MB), I ran a 512MB swap partition on it and it ran AntiX 8.0 (8.5 was not out yet) just fine before I sold it (ran wireless pcmcia card).

Edit: just realized you said you were installing when it froze. For sure, make a 700 MB or so
swap partition using gparted before proceeding to use the installer. It is freezing up because 96MB of ram needs some swap help running the graphical installer. That is why you are freezing up.

If you want to use a command line interface installer of AntiX which requires less ram (but you will still need to make a swap partition because 96MB of ram will give you speed fits)

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The antiX-core-686-b1.iso should have the cli installer. At least it did when I used it. Wait for Anti to comment on whether the full testing upgrade isos come with cli installer (can't remember at present moment)

Happy Trails and good luck with it, Rok

Thanks, I'll give it a try with swap memory when I get home from school.

And I'll wait for Anti too before downloading that iso.

sorry for the double post, but I just got it to install successfully.

But now when I reboot the system, it says
"GRUB loading Stage 1.5
GRUB loading, please wait....
Error 18"

Does anyone know a fix?

*EDIT*

I tried rebooting with the Live CD in, and I still got the error 18 thing. Even when I tried it with the Slitaz CD.

antix-M8.5-686-update does include the cli-installer, as well as the other update versions (-base, -core), at least they did for me.

Quote from you, greenghoul:"But now when I reboot the system, it says
"GRUB loading Stage 1.5 GRUB loading, please wait.... Error 18".
I've seen that before, and for me (on the low cpu/ram I was using), it turned out to be not quite enough ram to go further and/or the cd rom was not able to read the cd any further. More or less the same thing. Try maybe with Smart Boot Manager boot floppy, to boot up your antix cd, that helped me sometimes with low ram.

Disclosure: Have not tried this using only 94 M (94?) ram for antix-8 version you have mentioned. Therefore, is it possible to get just a little more ram plugged in to your PII, and is 94 M ram the correct number??

I had about 500 MB as a swap partition, which made things smoother while installing antix. But this whole error 18 thing is bugging me, I've tried 4 different live CDs and nothing.

What's"Smart Boot Manager boot floppy"? I've never heard of that.

What's"Smart Boot Manager boot floppy"?

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Been awhile since I used one though.


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Sold that Laptop since then. Most of my gear is newer now.

Maybe drg can elaborate a bit since he is currently proficient with older gear than I am now.

Try a web search on the topics, eg"grub error 18 debian" or some variant. I was led to a debian forum, an ubuntu forum and to gnu.org itself, among others. Here is a quote from somebodies post:
"Re: Error 18 ....
Refering to the GRUB Manual at
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It states that"Error 18" means, Quote: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS.This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle (512MB for (E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB in general). If you're comfortable with changing BIOS settings, you could check harddisk mode. If it's LBA or AUTO try changing it to NORMAL." ...end quote.

I don't understand exactly what this means either. There was more info/suggestions from that search, but I leave it to you to have a good hunt.

It is a grub error though, and may have something to do with your bios settings, or even a corrupt file. Older hardware gives delightful challenges at times. Oh, yeah, have you done a mem check (from live cd). Was the"94M" ram a typo, meant to be 96?

I did a dry trial last night on a Pentium II, 96M ram, 500MHz, using Antix-8.5-686-update, and up to an actual install to HD, all went well. I didn't want to overwrite the HD, ie I stopped the installation. This was with either installing from the gui or the cli-installer in runlevel 3 only. So, software and hardware will dance together.

Found better explanation at
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.
Quote:"Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS
This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle (512MB for (E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB on others.). In more practical terms this means the BIOS is unable to start executing the kernel because the kernel is not located within the block it can access at boot up time.

This can be circumvented by creating a boot partition at the beginning of the disk that is completely within the first 1023 cylinders of the harddrive. This partition will contain the kernel.

The kernel itself does not suffer from the same limitations as the BIOS so after the BIOS has loaded the kernel the kernel will have no problem accessing the whole harddrive. Newer BIOSes will automatically translate the harddrives size in a way that it can be completely contained within the first 1023 cylinders and hence modern computers do not suffer from this problem.
The same error can happen when the BIOS detects a disk in a different way as Linux does. This can happen when changing motherboards or when moving a GRUB-bootable disk from one computer to another. If this happens, just boot with a GRUB floppy, read the C/H/S numbers from the existing partition table and manually edit the BIOS numbers to match. If using a SUSE linux and installing on VM Ware this problem is solved by creating a small partition at the very beginning of the harddisc, and mounting it as /boot." ... end quote. Wordy, eh?

Also:"Error 18 on Dual Boot Systems Using a Single Hard Drive", etc.

Found my antix-8.2 Crazy Horse cd and a test HD, and got good performance as livecd and install from my Packard Bell PII (as described). Without swap on HD, same exp. as yours, with 200MB swap just fine. So the software works, there's not much difference between your PII and mine.
Just confirming and hoping this'll encourage to beat this glitch.
But why the error message while using livcds? Me dunno.

Seen this before, I would check your boot order in the bios looks to me that you are getting the same error even with live cd's because it is booting the hard drive first. If this was the problem, try repairing grub by loading the antix live cd, go menu run, type gksu msystem, repair system boot tab, press apply.

this should repair the grub boot loader and you will be on your way __{{emoticon}}__