[ltp] Help Needed

[Richard Neill]

Dear David,

Glad this is slightly helpful.

  > I suppose I expected that as my Linspire/Debian had identified my 
USB CD
> Drive if I stuck the Linspire 5 install disk in it would just boot up 
> and I could either repair or reinstall. I have given up that idea.

Unfortunately, what the BIOS can boot from is usually rather more 
restricted than the list of devices the OS can use once booted.
> 
> The basic resources I have are Xircom RealPort2 10/100 NIC - which is 
> not picked up when I run redetect or diagnose which are the other two 
> options in my grub menu.lst to boot the Linspire O/S - the GUI no longer 
> loads.

Does the A21e not have an internal network port on the back of the 
machine? You won't be able to network boot (PXE boot) from a PCMCIA card.

If you're trying to *install* via the network, it needs to be something 
the BIOS can see (it should appear in the boot options as "boot via LAN".

> 
> Question: How do I get Debian whatever to find it it? 
 >

[Not relevant for installation, but may help to know this anyway:]

If you run (as root) the command    ifconfig  -a
you should get a list of all detected devices. It should appear as eth0
or possibly eth1.

If you then run     ifconfig      (without the -a switch), it will list 
the devices which are currently online.

Use           dhclient eth0         to obtain a network connection.

Then I could do a
> network install at this internet cafe! In fact I have an 8 port hub and 
> another laptop which I can plug in - it's just getting my system from 
> the root prompt to get (1) the NIC card identified and (2) how do I 
> browse the network to access the other laptop to do the install - I have 
> Midnight Commander and Mozilla.

You need to use ssh.  Is the other laptop running Linux, or Windows?
Will the internet cafe let you install programs on their Windows 
machines? Will they let you download up to 2 GB of data?

> 
> Another Question. If I do a network install and choose to wipe 
> everything off, will I not loose the network connection? I know it's a 
> dumb question - but it makes me a little smarter!
> 

No. Essentially, during an install, everything that actually matters 
lives in RAM. Providing you don't kill power midway through, by the time
the install is finished, everything will be written out to disk.

> I had thought to create a folder "install" and copy everything from 
> either the Linspire or UBUNTU install CD via my 1 gig stick and try to 
> get grub to boot from there. I'm reading the grub docs on this point. 
> This seems to be a simple solution though I've not got anywhere with 
> this approach at this time.
> 

That should be workable, but it could be tricky. Try doing this:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveUsbPendrivePersistent


> I have the 1 gig pen drive - which enables me to transfer files between 
> my A21E and any CD using another laptop to transfer between the two and 
> of course the USB CD. Though I have connect it a few times to get the 
> system to read the files on a CD.
> 
> I can either try a repair to get Linspire 5 up and running or do a new 
> install of UBUNTU. A repair would keep what I have in the way of 
> programmes and I know where I am with the Linspire 5 - going to UBUNTU 
> would be new - I'm open minded at this time!
> 

Would suggest you go for Ubuntu in the end.


In summary, I think you have these options:

* Try moving the disk temporarily to the other laptop. Use its CD to do 
the install. Move it back.

* Use your other laptop to install Ubuntu onto a pendrive. [You'll need 
a 4GB pendrive for this to work, unless you are comfortable with doing a 
server-install]. Then, copy the newly installed system onto your A21e.
You can use your damaged linspire installation to copy across.

* Network install onto the A21e. (Requires an internal network card, NOT 
a PCMCIA one).

* Buy, or borrow an internal CD-ROM for the A21e. Quite cheap on eBay.
This may, in fact, be the easiest way for you to get everything working.

* Buy a USB-HDD enclosure for your A21's disk. (Cost about $10). Then, 
plug that into your other machine. Boot the other machine with the 
Ubuntu installer. Then, install onto the A21's disk. [Be *careful* not 
to install on the wrong disk!]


Essentially, you have to decide to either:

1)Find some way to install direct onto your laptop's disk, either by 
moving the disk to a different machine, or by finding a device the BIOS 
can boot.

2)Use your damaged linspire system to copy a complete installation over 
from somewhere else. You need a fully installed and working Linux system 
to copy from.

3)Try to repair the linspire system. If it boots up as far as a root 
prompt, it is possible to fix it. Does Linspire use xorg, or XFree86?
To find out, run
    ls /etc/X11/xorg.conf
and
    ls /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
Then, (take a copy first), and edit that file. You could also try moving 
it somewhere else, leaving nothing in its place. See whether the system 
is smart enough to regenerate a default file for you on reboot.


Lastly, this page may help you. It's my documentation of the A22p, which 
is quite similar to the A21e. It refers to Mandrake 2006, but some of 
the stuff there may be of use.
http://www.richardneill.org/a22p-mdk11-0.php


Best wishes,

Richard



P.S. How comfortable are you with using (or learning about):
    bash, rsync, ssh, mount, mkfs, fdisk, nano  ?

Your problem is soluble, but it's going to be quite advanced to fix.
The "wizardy" is quite fun to learn, but there is a fair amount of it 
that you'll need. So, do decide what you want to do.

The simple/quick way is to buy some more hardware - either an ultrabay 
CD-ROM, a large pendrive, a USB->Mini-IDE adapter (i.e. a USB hard disk 
enclosure for laptop size disks), or a thinkpad mini-PCI card with 
network/modem.



> Regards,
> 
> David
> 
> Richard Neill wrote:
>> Dear David,
>>
>> I think you're slightly confused about auto-running CDs.
>>
>> > Plainly even with the latest bios update on the A21E it does not
>> > recognise USB devices to boot from. My LInspire CD will run
>> > automatically from my USB CD on a Windows machine but not my Linux.
>>
>> When you say "auto-run", do you mean
>>
>> a)An operating system is already running. When you insert the CDROM, 
>> it opens a file browser (eg konqueor, or internet explorer)
>>
>> or
>>
>> b)When you restart the machine, the BIOS will boot from the USB-CD 
>> device.
>>
>> If (b), then it means that the BIOS on your A21e does not support 
>> booting from the usb-cdrom.
>>
>> If (a), then you should simply be able to mount the CD device manually.
>> (Run the dmesg command to see what's happening, and then use the mount 
>> command).
>>
>> --------
>>
>> Am I correct in thinking that you just want to find some way to 
>> install Ubuntu Linux on your (CD-ROM less) A21e?
>>
>> If so, what resources do you have at your disposal? Do you have 
>> another computer, running either Windows or Linux? If so, you could 
>> try doing a network install. This should work - I used a similar 
>> method to install on my X20.
>>
>> http://hugi.to/blog/archive/2006/12/23/ubuntu-pxe-install-via-windows
>> http://wiki.koeln.ccc.de/index.php/Ubuntu_PXE_Install
>> http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installation_on_ThinkPads_without_CD-ROM_drive
>>
>> Alternatively, you could try to rescue your Linspire system. It's 
>> almost certainly not as badly broken as you think.
>>  sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
>> followed by a reboot (or restart kdm/gdm) should solve your GUI problem.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>> skipper wrote:
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> I have a strange problem - which I have tried to solve - so here 
>>> goes. I had a working 600E with Linspire 5.0.59 which had a Debian 
>>> core version 2.6.10 - latest version of Linspire v6 has UBUNTU. My 
>>> 600E had a motherboard failure.
>>>
>>> I also have an A21E - it has no CD Drive - it has a battery as I use 
>>> the A21E to navigate my boat. It seemed to me a "simple" matter of 
>>> sticking the 600E's hard disk in the A21E. It worked ok - but 
>>> Linspire had a few problems with mouse (ps/2 serial and usb) which 
>>> failed to work and an inability to connect to my nic - there are 
>>> display issues when Linspire's GUI loaded psychedelic. No matter how 
>>> many times I ran redetect or diagnose - in fact Linspire's GUI 
>>> eventually vanished and I have access via the prompt as root and 
>>> Midnight Commander to get around.
>>>
>>> I am faced with doing a reinstall - either Linspire or UBUNTU. I have 
>>> created a UBUNTU bootable 1 gig pen drive - I have also a usb CD 
>>> drive. Alas GRUB will not boot either one and CDs don't auto-run on 
>>> my Linspire/Debian system as in Windows. I have also tried copying 
>>> the contents of my Linspire CD onto the pen drive and dumping that on 
>>> the dard disk but as of this time I've had no success in getting grub 
>>> to boot anything up. Must be possible.
>>>
>>> Plainly even with the latest bios update on the A21E it does not 
>>> recognise USB devices to boot from. My LInspire CD will run 
>>> automatically from my USB CD on a Windows machine but not my Linux. 
>>> There must be a way to start an install either from files copied to 
>>> the hard disk or via my USB CD. I just can't figure out the "howto." 
>>> I don't mind installing UBUNTU over what I have as I have saved all 
>>> the data or any other Distro that works on the A21E.
>>>
>>> Practical thoughts would be useful because I have tried the Linspire 
>>> UBUNTU Foruns and LinuxQuestions.org - I wonder why I left OS/2 - oh 
>>> well.......................
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> David
>>> PS Hello Ted Frater - Kathryn and I are on a boat in Cyprus.
>>>
>>>
>