How to install Puppy on a Sony Viao with 64 MB of RAM?

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hairybiker
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How to install Puppy on a Sony Viao with 64 MB of RAM?

#1 Post by hairybiker »

I have a viao pcg-c1f, (233 pentium/64Mb/4Gb HDD)

I have managed to get it to boot from the floppy but not been able to get it to see the PCICMA CDROM drive with puppy linux on it.

At the moment it is running :!: Win98 :shock: but I want to completely wipe it and run linux on it.

Anybody able to give me some pointers on this one?
Last edited by hairybiker on Tue 08 Feb 2011, 10:54, edited 1 time in total.

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racepres
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#2 Post by racepres »

Hairybiker... Drop me a PM I can make it go...
RP

tempestuous
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#3 Post by tempestuous »

hairybiker,
I think you have one of those Sony PCMCIA CD drives which uses a non-standard PCMCIA interface, so that the Sony bios can access it as a boot device.
Back in 2005 I used one of these to boot Puppy (ver 1.04!) on a "Superslim" VAIO PCG-505TS.

The trick is to use extra boot parameters so the CD device will be recognised as an IDE interface, not PCMCIA.
At the boot prompt, type this

Code: Select all

puppy ide1=0x180,0x386 nopcmcia acpi=off
then press enter.

tempestuous
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#4 Post by tempestuous »

Oh, regarding 64MB RAM, that's quite a limiting factor. If you're keen on running Puppy in RAM, it will be essential to increase your RAM. You will require RAM that is unique to that model of VAIO, but it should still be available on eBay. If, like my PCG-505, the maximum RAM is 128MB, you can forget about using the latest Puppies. You should go back to Puppy 214X, and maybe even Puppy 2.01.

An easier option would be to do a full HD installation. Nuke your hard drive and format it with ext3. Then reboot and do a full HD install. Now the RAM requirements are really modest.

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racepres
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#5 Post by racepres »

tempestuous wrote:Oh, regarding 64MB RAM, that's quite a limiting factor. If you're keen on running Puppy in RAM, it will be essential to increase your RAM. You will require RAM that is unique to that model of VAIO, but it should still be available on eBay. If, like my PCG-505, the maximum RAM is 128MB, you can forget about using the latest Puppies. You should go back to Puppy 214X, and maybe even Puppy 2.01.

An easier option would be to do a full HD installation. Nuke your hard drive and format it with ext3. Then reboot and do a full HD install. Now the RAM requirements are really modest.
Agreed.. Tho I prefer Mean Puppy..
RP

EDIT:
I have ram around here that I don't even remember what it goes to.... Give me the type/spec, please.

hairybiker
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#6 Post by hairybiker »

Thanks for the replies. The Ram is fixed not upgradeable.
I want to install to HD.

The cdrom is not a sony one but I will try that command line and see if it sees it.

sfeeley
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#7 Post by sfeeley »

I've got a small-form sony laptop (a bit bigger than yours though). Ultimately I had to pull the hardrive manually, and stick it in another box to load puppy (I put on a bunch of different frugal installs so that I could test which ultimately worked, and then delete some later since manually getting the harddrive out was such a chore--small screws and patience!)

If you have win98 running on it, and a network connection, maybe somebody wiser than I can figure out a way to do a network install?

214x is nice. Also be sure to put in a swap partition.

Jim1911
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Re: How to install Puppy on a Sony Viao with 64 MB of RAM?

#8 Post by Jim1911 »

hairybiker wrote:I have a viao pcg-c1f, (233 pentium/64Mb/4Gb HDD)
I have managed to get it to boot from the floppy but not been able to get it to see the PCICMA CDROM drive with puppy linux on it.
At the moment it is running :!: Win98 :shock: but I want to completely wipe it and run linux on it.
Anybody able to give me some pointers on this one?
Without a working CD drive, it will be difficult. Is your bios set so that you can boot from a CD?

What are you booting from the floppy? If you are already booting a frugal installation of puppy on your hard drive, and you have more than one partition, there may be some hope getting a full hd installation. Otherwise, your best bet will be to pull the hd and install from another computer.

I have had success with Wary, puppy 4.2, and dpup on a similar Sony vaio with only 64MB ram, however it runs very slow and is probably not worth the effort to get it installed. Puppy 2.14 did not work on mine.

hairybiker
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#9 Post by hairybiker »

I have a working cd drive it just isn't bootable on this system - it isn't a Sony one. :twisted:
I have created a floppy with WkPup2x v0.2 on it but it doesn't see the cdrom drive and I only have one usb port with the floppy in it. :oops:

I have managed to get DSL booted by putting the KNOPPIX folder on the hdd, can I do the same with a puppy install?


I really want to re-format the hdd but not being able to get anything to reformat it with I am stuck at the moment.

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Béèm
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#10 Post by Béèm »

Maybe you could keep the Windows 98 and use the Lin'N'Win method.In any case you need More memory/a swap file
Time savers:
Find packages in a snap and install using Puppy Package Manager (Menu).
[url=http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HomePage]Consult Wikka[/url]
Use peppyy's [url=http://wellminded.com/puppy/pupsearch.html]puppysearch[/url]

hairybiker
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#11 Post by hairybiker »

OK removed the drive and have repartitioned it on my main pc.
Now have a / (3.5Gb) and a 512Mb swap partition.

Now how do I get puppy on to the drive without it writing to any of my other drives? I will (?) need grub installed on it to get it to boot.?

sfeeley
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#12 Post by sfeeley »

if you use the puppy universal installer, and are careful about which drive is which, you should be fine--there are lots of safety checks along the way.

Before hand, take a look at how the drives are labled on your desktop, and write down which is which (if your not familiar with how they are labeled in linux)

BUT: I always worry about such things, so I manually disconnect all the drives except the one I want to install to. (Overkill, I'm ususally the one guy who screws things up so I try to be extra careful).

hairybiker
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#13 Post by hairybiker »

OK well since the drive to be installed on to is only 4GB and the rest are all 500Gb+ then it should be easy to spot ;-)

Just blowing puppy 2.12 on to usb drive to test before I install.

hairybiker
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#14 Post by hairybiker »

having a problem with the 2.14 image, it doesn't like my sata dvd drive. It boots then panics because it cant find an IDECD.
Is there any parameters I can pass to use usb/sata ?

hairybiker
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#15 Post by hairybiker »

OK used the puppylite 4 cd instead.
Have installed it but when it boots it cant find the puppy_420 file and exits to a shell.

next? :shock:

sfeeley
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#16 Post by sfeeley »

hmmm.... moving beyond what I know (I'm a bit of an enthusiastic noob)

that said . . .
Is there any parameters I can pass to use usb/sata ?
As you say, it sounds like an addition to your menu.lst file is needed.
You might look around at:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/BootParams

So what setup are you in exactly right now? For example, earlier you pulled the harddrive? What machine is it in now? Which machine is it having the errors in? (basically trying to figure out if the problem is with the sony viao 64mb ram, or is a "generic" install problem)
Is it in a USB-powered caddie or directly installed into the other machine? What are the specs of machine b?
Were you able to get puppy running on the live CD first?

And, if you switched the harddrive from one sort of setup in computer A to another setup in Computer B, you might need to edit menu.lst since the installer would try to match the computer you were originally using. (unfortunately, if you've already moved the harddrive, this might mean uninstalling again to be able to edit the file)

On my older machines, I always need to put in the parameter acpi=off or a varient like pci=noacpi

As I said, I hope this is helpful, even though its a beyond my paygrade

tempestuous
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#17 Post by tempestuous »

hairybiker wrote:Have installed it but when it boots it cant find the puppy_420 file and exits to a shell.
It sounds like you did a frugal installation. Like I said earlier, that's not a good idea for your RAM-challenged VAIO.
You should do a full installation instead.

hairybiker
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#18 Post by hairybiker »

OK the hdd was in my main pc for installing. I used 4lite to install and there was no option for frugal/full on the install menu just choose the hdd and press ok.

I choose SYSLINUX as the boot maybe I shouldn't have?
The booting is on the viao with the error puppy xx not found.

The 2.14 version I tried fails to boot on my main pc - so I can't install from it. Trying to locate another laptop with a normal cdrom drive to see if it will boot.

EDIT: will try the PMEDIA=satacd to see if it boots. Will have to repull the drive from the lt again.

hairybiker
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#19 Post by hairybiker »

No boot on main pc using puppy 2.12.
Removed hdd again
Installed in an acer l/t
booted from the 2.12 puppy link racepres sent me
Installed again wiped disk
installed grub
using defaults
/dev/hda1
MBR

now trying to boot from hdd (IN the acer) I get a grub error saying
EXTLINUX 3.63 etc
Could not find kernel image: linux

drive is formatted to ext2

sfeeley
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#20 Post by sfeeley »

@Tempestuous:

You know far more about these things than me. Since a full install would probably work better, is there a way that he can squeeze a couple of different full installs onto the 4gb harddrive? (I think one of the issues is that he is pulling the harddrive and using a second computer to load puppy, and I suspect that pulling the drive on this computer is probably a pain.)

-The answer is probably something like setting up several partitions and then properly setting up grub to let you choose between them--but I'm a frugal guy, and not really familiar with the specifics.

Hopefully, once he gets successfully booted into the final computer, he can figure out which of the multiple puppies actually works, and then erase the others.

@OP
there was no option for frugal/full on the install menu just choose the hdd and press ok.
Here's a good how-to on full installs using puppy 4.01. There wasn't a choice like on image 26?
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29653
EDIT: will try the PMEDIA=satacd to see if it boots.
That might help--and you might try experimenting.

That said, I think its more likely that you might need to change how the drive is labeled in grub’s menu.lst file. Since you installed on a computer with several drives, puppy might have labeled that drive something like sdb1 (2nd drive, partition 1), but when you move computers that drive would be the first drive (sda1).
FYI Grub uses its own naming conventions whereby sda1 would be hd0,0.
Its confusing: for a tutorial on the drives naming--see
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/GRUB
and scroll down.

It would probably be a good idea to post a copy of your menu.lst file to the forum.

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