Hello everyone,

I have an old Toshiba Tecra 550cdt. 266 Mhz with MMX. 160 Mb ram.

I have tried to do a frugal grub instal from live cd..it didnt turn out to well. anyway...which method of installing DSL(frugal...usb..full hardive) gets the best out of this type old hardware? with or without any windows installed. currently theres no windows left on it but i do have recovery disk to put 95 back on it if needed.

As for the frugal install on it now...im sure i did something wrong or left off a step..seems all the step by step guides i find are pretty old or assume i already know what i am doing...any help or advice out there

Hello-why do you think the frugal install is flawed??
DSL sometimes does this as it for some reason wants to make a ext2/3 on your USB which is not necessary.

DSL really is best as a frugal install for either USB or HD.

For USB, partition the USB using Gparted or whatever you are comfortable with. Both partitions FAT32

Make partition 1 approx 60MB-it will be sda1 to DSL

Make partition 2 whatever is left on your USB or at least 256-512MB as this where dsl will put the mydsl folder and backup.tar.gz.
So it would be sda2 to DSL

Your actual device is probably sdb/sdf/sdc, etc as recognized by Gparted.

Make sure the "boot" flag is set, check the box.
Open Gparted in Ubuntu, click on the "Gparted" button at the top left, select "devices" and then your USB.

The screen will display your device, right click on the line displaying your USB, select "manage flags", check the box.

So-download dsl-4.4.10-embedded.zip from DSL
( http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/...small/current/ )

After downloading, extract the .zip to your sda1 or the first partition of your USB.

Now, install syslinux to the first partition(sda1 to DSL-which would actually be your device- sdf1/sdc1/sdb1-make sure you install syslinux to the USB, not your HD!
If your HD designation is sda(1), do not install syslinux to sda1!!

Example-open a terminal and as root "syslinux -s /dev/sdxx" where "xx" is your USB-ALSO make sure to unmount your USB before installing syslinux to the first partition.

Before proceding, in your file browser, goto "View" and select "show hidden files".

Now, open the syslinux.cfg in the usb and add this to all the "append" lines-
"mydsl=sda2"
Press save and a ghostly backup of syslinux.cfg will appear(syslinux.cfg~)
Delete it or it will corrupt the new one.

now reboot your pc and when it loads the DSL desktop open a root shell at the menu(right-click anywhere) and enter "mount"
It should display "sda2" as mounted at "mnt/sda2"

Now-enter "cd /mnt/sda2"
Then "ls /mnt/sda2"
You should see a "mydsl" folder there...

If the folder's not there-
"mkdir mydsl"
If it is there-
"mkdir mydsl/modules"
"mkdir mydsl/optional"
and then
"cp /KNOPPIX/lib/modules/2.4.31/kernel/drivers/block/cloop.o /mnt/sda2/mydsl/modules"

Now, at the menu select the mydsl browser
Update it-it will ask...
Install a couple simple apps like rox.dsl and jwmthemes.tar.gz
Change the themes at the menu/setup "set theme"
to install a wallpaper-open firefox-goto a site with wallpapers, right click the wallpaper, select "save as" and press "save" when a box appears.
Close firefox and double click the "home" symbol at top left of screen
a box will open with the wallpaper u just downloaded.

Double click the "apps" folder on the desktop-double click "backgrounds"
drag n drop the wallpaper from dsl/home to the backgrounds window.
close it all up.

goto menu select system/control panel
select backgrounds-your wallpaper should show up.
select "try"
then "install"

open menu/system/backup-restore and enter "sda2" if it's not already there. click "backup"

Now goto menu/exit
reboot

Take out the USB and load your normal linux desktop.
insert usb and open syslinux.cfg with a text editor-Gedit
at the append line, after "mydsl=sda2" enter "restore=sda2 modules=sda2"
for all entries except failsafe.
save and discard backup "syslinux.cfg~"

open the 2nd partition on usb-should be a mydsl folder and backup.tzr.gz

Also-post any problems you have.
If you want to play with DSL without rebooting or having to worry about "breaking" anything
Download my DSL-embedded-persistent.zip (55MB) at ( http://multidistro.com/ )
and you can play the Qemu DSL out of the folder on your Desktop and it saves back to the vhd either out of the folder or on your USB

Read all the docs about it inside-this post is too long

hello again linus72,

I believe the frugal install is flawed because more things worked(or at least seemed to) when I just run the live cd. such as the power indicater would show batt or ac..sound was working..so on...but after the frugal thing these no longer seem to work.Ofcorse when i ran the live cd there was also a W2K OS on it thats not there now.

I plan to try it again if I can find a more up to date guide...the usb thing does sound pretty cool but this laptop only has 1 usb and i need that for mouse(I cant stand the joystick thing) and theres no touchpad.

I have not completely read your post yet...shew! alot in there i dont yet understand..but will read it thru a few times thanks

sorry-it's just hard to explain it all...

Have you read the dsl wiki?
( http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page )

here
( http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index...oadlin_Install )

and this too
( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/f/topic-3-26-8732-0.html )

hope that all helps some
don't give up on DSL,as it has many secrets

that 3rd link looks promising...similar to what i found and used before except for the ..mke2fs part ...i know i didnt do that before. probably my big problem right there huh?


and no i cant give up...windows has outgrown this laptop so its figure out linux or throw it away

Probably=it took me two months of googling to figure out how to fix and then modify dsl-embedded for linux users.

I'm deep into DSL now and finding stuff out everyday...

You could also check out "tinycore"
the man behind "mydsl" split from dsl and now works with tinycore and it's pretty cool too.

for now my main objective is to get this one laptop totaly working correctly and use that for my base to try to learn the ins and outs of linux...from what I have read,if you can figure out one distro you should be able to figure out most any of the others. As this is my weakest pc/laptop if all goes well my other machines should be easier(I hope)

ok..so i am following the 3rd link above...have got to the part where it says "now we'll edit the grub menu"...comment out the undesired 3 line sets...okwhat the heck is all that about





update: I didnt go past that point yet but as of now I am on the tecra.I did add toram in the setup instuctions also.firefox seems awful slow and cpu hits 100% alot.
am waiting for advice before doing anything more to it

Yes-I know-some terms in Linux are confusing...
a "commented" entry in isolinux.cfg, or the slackpkg mirrors appears like this-

#label dsl
#kernel
#append

(slack)
#linux download site
#http etc

that means it will not be read by isolinux/syslinux and not able to boot.
For slack you have to "uncomment" the http/ftp url address.
To "uncomment"

label dsl
kernel
append

(slack)
#linux download site
http etc

Confusing language is all.
Firefox is a RAM hog too, so try Dillo if you can...
Have you looked at Feather or DSL-N?

actually I guess its not firefox, just looks like it...something called bon echo?
I have dsl running on my desktop at the moment thru a sdhc thing I got with a cell phone...tiny little thing,1 gig,the little reader and all is about the size of a normal usb end on a cable.a few weeks ago all I did was unzip the embeded zip on the thing...opened a file on it called dsl base and bingo...dsl was running... not done any fiddling on it tho...that bon echo browser runs preety slow this way too...dillo wouldnt let me log in here for some reason..

anyway...back to the tecra...still dont have a clue what your talking about...the guide says i need to edit grub...something about comment out undesireable lines...ok...whats so undesireable???.dsl put it all there didnt it???
and as for comment out..i gather from the way its on your post means to add or remove the # symbol?

there are 5 options on the grub list I assume I only need the one with the right screen res and maybe the one that says check filesystems?

Or have I been staring at the fog thru Windows for so long its affected my brain and I'm hopelessly lost

dbl post deleted