[jarhead8286]

I am trying to install VL 4.3 on a Dell 450Mhz with 128MB RAM and a 10GB hard disk. The PC will be dedicated to VL. Do I need to fdisk the hard drive and create one large formatted partition?
I burned the ISO image to a CD and booted with it. When I got to a point where it asks to create a partition (/dev/hda), that's where I get stuck.

I am presented with the following:
============================
Part# Start Pt End Pt Kind

Which partition do you want to resize?
============================

I am not seeing any partitions listed.

For the hell of it, I entered "1" and received this message:
mount: /dev/hda1 is not a valid block device

<EDIT>
Went a step further and, using Partition Magic, created Linux primary and swap partitions. Tried installing Vector again. This time Part# recognized the the 1st partition which I selected. Vector installation was performing some kind of check and came back with a message:

Hmmmm.....
could not find veclinux.bz2 file in a veclinux directory on your hard drive or CDROM.
mount: /dev/scd3 is not a valid block device
mount: /dev/scd4 is not a valid block device

I checked the CD and, in fact, veclinux.bz2 file does exist in a veclinux directory.
Why is it mentioning /dev/scd if I have an IDE drive?
</EDIT>

[Whiteskin]

That does strike me as strange. I can't find anything related directly to that error, but, I would reccomend trying sometihng else. Try Arch linux.

[jarhead8286]

Originally Posted by Whiteskin

That does strike me as strange. I can't find anything related directly to that error, but, I would reccomend trying sometihng else. Try Arch linux.

Is it Arch or Ark?
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ark

Will it run fine on 450Mhz with 128MB RAM?

[Whiteskin]

Arch. It's another 'optomized' distro. And yes, it should run decently on that. what really slows down linux is what graphical environment you are running. Gnome isn't really usable at my processor speeds (200-266), but it may be on yours.

[jarhead8286]

Now this is bizarre. I tried installing Arch distro and during the package installation process it could not mount the CDROM. Maybe for the same reason I could not install Vector distro. Any thoughts or suggestions? Maybe I should attemp to install from the hard drive or try to change the CDROM?

[Whiteskin]

I've had issues with CDs before. When it gives you a prompt at the beginning to the boot process, and you can look at the list of kernels, boot the default kernel, but add the options 'ide=nodma' to it. That solved my problem, and hopefully will do the same for you. If you have another drive, you may want to try that.
(often it looks like 'boot:')

[saikee]

I have just installed Vector 4.3 in my hdc12 partition.

It originally refused to go into hda23 or hda22 which is between 165 to 175Gb portion of my 200Gb drive. The hdc12 is at the 70Gb position of my second 80Gb hrad drive. Vector 4.3 is similar to many distros afriad of crossing the 137Gb barrier.

By the way I seldom allow a distro to check the CD information because it takes too long. So my Vector could have the same problem if I permit it to check the integrity of the CD. In the past I found this to be a waste of time.

I am impressed by it as I am using its Morzilla to do this reply.

[jarhead8286]

Originally Posted by Whiteskin

I've had issues with CDs before. When it gives you a prompt at the beginning to the boot process, and you can look at the list of kernels, boot the default kernel, but add the options 'ide=nodma' to it. That solved my problem, and hopefully will do the same for you. If you have another drive, you may want to try that.
(often it looks like 'boot:')

I tried booting using ide=nodma, but that didn't help in my case. I attempted using a different CDROm, but wasn't able to boot from it. Instead, I decided to install VL from the hard drive. Everything went smoothly until the installation prompted how I wanted to install LILO. I chose to install LILO to the root partition, but it wasn't able - I guess a better choise would have been MBR instead. When the installation completed and I rebooted the PC, all I got was the word GRUB. What are my choices now? How do I make a bootable diskette or make it boot from MBR?

[saikee]

VL 4.3 uses Lilo version 22.5.7.2. The Grub is a leftover from another version of your installed Linux!

If you can load another Live CD, chroot to it and issue "lilo -b /dev/hda" then it will boot from the MBR in future.

[lynch]

Saikee, why do you think checking a CD is a waste of time? Those Red Hat/ Fedora integrity checks are not reliable but it's always worth the 1-2 minutes it takes to check the md5sums on the downloaded iso before you burn it.
lynch

[jarhead8286]

Well, I am posting this reply from VL. I decided to reinstall VL to see where I went wrong. Once I got to a point where I have to make a choice where LILO will be installed, I paid a little more attention. If LILO is installed to /dev/hda2, I had to boot into DOS, go into fdisk, and make the Linux partiton the active one. This time though, I installed LILO to MBR.

I immediatelly installed Firefox, but can't see a shortcut to it anywhere in the start menu - how do I go about adding Firefox shortcut to the Internet group?

It seems like VL is running smoothly on 450Mhz system. Any general suggestions are welcome about VL. Thanks to all for your support.

[saikee]

lynch,

I am just lazy. Many distros using the Anaconda installer always offer to check the CD but many other distros don't bother. I have checks done but never a failure reported so I bypass this step now.

[lynch]

[jarhead8286]

So how do you launch Firefox after it is installed? I mean, how do you add a "shortcut" to the menu?

[Maverick83]

Linux is very different, I have yet to see where it install most applications. It installs it, and I may never hear of it again. I'd do a search for "FireFox". But first, check /usr/bin dir and see if the executable is there.