(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Thanks, I'll run through your steps when I get home this evening.

I'm not sure about this pup_save though? Is this something happening in the background or do I need to do/create/edit/etc something?

JacquiG,
I assumed you would know what I was talking about. I also assumed you had saved the updates you tested with. A pup_save file is fundamental to a frugal installation, where all of your changes and data are preserved for next time. You apparently did not get that far (duh!)-- if you simply turn off the laptop, nothing gets saved -- but you had to, if it was hanging(!). I'll discuss pup_save later, since we can test without it.

First, note that the "grep" instruction I gave you should not have the "-q" part. To keep things simple, just run the test on a "pfix=ram,nox" bootup and verify it behaves as I described. Note also that I have changed the (now) first two steps to include modifying the overrides file without using the editor.



Now here is the pup_save stuff I wrote before focusing on the problem at hand. But it might be useful to you in saving your changes and will show that puppy can start the desktop display automatically:

When rebooting from your initial run on Puppy (enter: reboot), either from a CD or from a manual frugal install (and pfix=ram), you are prompted in a dialog box to choose "save to a file", (maybe) "save to <hda?>", or "do not save". Select "save to file" and make subsequent selections Puppy requests. For testing, you can use a small size (32M, 64M). It should go into the same partition as the frugal install (or where you plan to have a frugal installation.

On reboot, you will have all your previous settings and data. So, you should make the override change and the tests on your first (pfix=ram) bootup; they will take effect in the next bootup (no parameters) and that's when you'll know whether they work.

If still unsuccessful, reboot with "pfix=nox" and try "xorgwizard" at the eventual prompt.
Richard

Maybe you need to email flyingpup to see how he got his much older lappy working.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29614

http://209.167.114.38/ISG/pastproducts/ ... _spec.html

flyingpup :

" i have put pup 4 on 6 notebooks this (past) weekend, from new zippy notebooks to my baby tpad 701 (the butterfly). the only device that gives me problems are software modems and sound.
i get net access on all.

I am considering teaching my own pup to use a notebook with pup hehe. That would make a great promo card / viral ad.

The Toshiba Tecra 530CDT circa 1995 that never ever took a linux distro (even that ubuntu/wubi) took puppy.

I just love pup! "

Chris.

Hi rerwin,

Making progress...

edited xorgoverrides - happy dance
cat... and grep... returned the right stuff - happy dance
free - happy dance

Ok, now here:

6. Then enter:
Code:
xorgwizard
and it should show a dialog box with buttons for "xorg" and "command prompt" (or equivalent).

I see xorg or the command prompt - which do I choose? And then what?

I haven't started through your next post addressing pup_save. I'm not sure I want to proceed without some advise so I don't undo (not save?) the changes I've just made.

Jacqui

Ok, I made it through the prompts to save the pup_save.2fs file.

When I rebooted though I just ended back up at a prompt and my swap file is not active, my oem listing is not in xorgoverrides, etc? Did I reboot incorrectly an I need to manually make all these changes again? Do I need to edit my menu.lst again?

JacquiG,
Which prompts did you work through? The pupsave stuff or modifying /etc/xorgoverrides? Did you try xorgwizard immediately after verfying that /etc/xorgoverrides looked right?

Maybe you need to list the steps you took and the results, so I have something to assess. I'm looking for anything I said wrong or you misinterpreted. Anyway, let's get your display working before worrying about the pup_save. If you get to the desktop and reboot, the save will happen.
Thanks.
Richard

If I"m understanding correctly, everything looks good:

cat...xorgoverrides - shows 'oem: MagicGraph...' as last line in file
grep... - returns 'oem: MagicGraph...'
free - shows that swap file is in use
pup_save file created and saved

reboot looks good, I'm prompted for my pup_save (I ended up with 2 ) file and get to the xorgwizard with the options Xorg or Commandline
- there is a line in red that says Xvesa will hang my machine
- if I choose Xorg I momentarily see the prompt 'probing...' then my monitor goes black and nothing just like before.
- if I choose Commandline, I'm not sure what to do

Jacqui, I have an idea: try booting and then, in the command prompt, type If it hangs, we know you have the "normal" NeoMagic problem.
If not, we need to figure out why Xorg won't work.

Ok, regular bootup using pup_save or with pfix=? in menu.lst?

entering 'Xvesa -listmodes' returns a huge long list (more than 1 screen) with the likes of:

0x0010: 640x350x4 Planar (4 planes) (no linear framebuffer)
0x0103: 800x600x8 PseudoColor...
0x0112: 640x480x24 TrueColor [8:8:8:0]...
0x0114: 800x600x16 Truecolor [8:8:8:0]...
0x0117: 1024x768x16 Truecolor [5:6:5:0]...
0x0123: 400x300x16 TrueColor [5:6:5:0]...

Just randomly picked a few lines to quote here. Oh, I so want to get this working

I had the final crash it looks like on my desktop last night - installing fedora and like what I see so far. Can't even safe boot into Windows.

I'm still hopeful that I can get Puppy onto my laptop. I found these 2 links and will proceed to try them and see what results I get

http://www.x.org/archive/X11R6.8.0/doc/neomagic.4.html
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=146452

I'll start with x.org since it explicately makes mention of my card (MagicGraph 128XD (NM2160)) and possible configuration considerations.

Here goes nothing!

Well, I think I'm about ready to give up. I think I messed up following the instructions in the one thread, or the changes took place but absolutely nothing has changed.

Thought I might try some other distros/installations using a boot floppy but can't mount my floppy drive on my desktop to create a boot floppy, can't boot into Windows, blahblahblah....

II guess it's time to flatten both my laptop and desktop or throw them both out the window and go buy Macs.

Jacqui,

not sounding very promising! How did you try installing fedora on the desktop? Is the floppy completely ratso, or only under windows? Because if the desktop had a CDR drive, and the floppy drive could boot, then you could try sbootmanager floppy to coerce a CDR to boot puppy.

Things on my desktop seem to be going ok Do I dare say it

I'm still running Puppy on my desktop. I thought I'd try Fedora using a DVD install but I've been mucking with my laptop all night I haven't been having much luck though

It ends up the floppy on my desktop was/is mounted even though the 'mount' dialog shows it's not and fails when I try to mount it. I found it was mounted only when I was exploring the file structure and saw it listed in the mnt directory. So I should be able to create a boot floppy. I was thinking it might be another way I could try to help install another distribution onto my laptop if I can't get Puppy working.

I did some more research and found some floppy drivers for my cd drive on my laptop...wow, that was long winded

I'll try it tonight and hope it works and will expand the options available to me for experimenting and getting something installed.

Found this link specific to NeoMagic chipsets that I'm hoping will help:
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/neomagic.html

Since my problem has now become more specific to video I thought it might be appropriate to start a new thread:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 839#217839

Thanks guys...you've been great (and given me hope). Can you maybe help me out over on the other thread to get my video working?

Jacqui

I have a Toshiba Portege 3110ct with a Trident Cyber 9525 video chipset. I've seen this particular machine mentioned several times in this thread, but it is unclear if a fix for it made it into any particular version on Puppy. I am coming here fresh off of trying to get DSL to run Xvesa unsuccessfully on this machine. Does anyone have an answer for me, or can I help in any way?

Hello Harryc,

unfortunately I don't think JacquiG ever found a solution to
her graphics problem. Two additional compounding
problems, with getting puppy working on her computer,
were limited RAM, and inability to get puppy to boot
from the default live CD, due to external usb CD.

Just from general forum reading, it seems some have
success getting their trident cyber graphics working,
whereas others,like JacquiG, are unsuccessful.

So how much RAM does your laptop have? And if you
can boot from a CD, that's the simplest thing to try &
see whether Puppy's xorgwizard will work for you or
not.

harryc,
Puppy 4.00+ should work with it. It will force you to use xorg, which is all that works with that hardware. Be sure you have at least 128MB RAM+swap partition.

It will probably freeze during first bootup, with an instruction to press ctrl-c. Do that and then select xorg. Please report what happens. Thanks.
Richard

Hi Richard, thanks for the reply, Puppy 4.0 worked exactly as you've described. This has been very challenging hardware to get Linux installed on, and I've finally found a home for it at Puppy. Thank-you!

@muggins, I have 128MB RAM. I cheated a bit on the install. I physically removed my hard drive and installed it in a Thinkpad, then I installed Puppy 4.0, then I put the drive back in the Portege. It came right up after the xorg/resolution selection process.