puppy-215CE-Final.iso won't boot on Compaq Presario 1270

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rothmail
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed 11 Apr 2007, 18:55

puppy-215CE-Final.iso won't boot on Compaq Presario 1270

#1 Post by rothmail »

I'm trying to get Puppy Linux 215CE to boot on a Compaq Presario 1270 laptop that has 160 MB of RAM. This system was purchased new in 1999. I have looked here on this forum and tried various boot options and it continues to hang while "Loading kernel modules..." in the "Now executing 'rc'sysinit' script in the /etc/rc.d..." section.

This same system boots fine with DSL 3.2 (Damn Small Linux). I'm open to suggestions and be glad to gather more information about this to help debug this problem. Since this is booting from a live CD, I don't have access to log files.

Thanks in advance!

Booting from hard disk with DSL 3.2, here is the lspci -v output:

root@0[root]# lspci -v
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: ALi Corporation M1541 (rev 04)
Subsystem: ALi Corporation ALI M1541 Aladdin V/V+ AGP System Controller
Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 32
Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64M]
Capabilities: [b0] AGP version 1.0

0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: ALi Corporation M1541 PCI to AGP Controller (rev 04) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 99
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=99
I/O behind bridge: 0000e000-0000efff
Memory behind bridge: fd000000-fecfffff

0000:00:07.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation M1533 PCI to ISA Bridge [Aladdin IV] (rev 0a)
Subsystem: ALi Corporation ALI M1533 Aladdin IV ISA Bridge
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

0000:00:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1969 Solo-1 Audiodrive (rev 02)
Subsystem: ESS Technology: Unknown device 8898
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
I/O ports at fcc0 [size=64]
I/O ports at fca0 [size=16]
I/O ports at fcb0 [size=16]
I/O ports at fc88 [size=4]
I/O ports at fc8c [size=4]
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 1

0000:00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1211
Subsystem: Compaq Computer Corporation: Unknown device b103
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 10
Memory at 10000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=05, sec-latency=176
Memory window 0: 10400000-107ff000 (prefetchable)
Memory window 1: 10800000-10bff000
I/O window 0: 00004000-000040ff
I/O window 1: 00004400-000044ff
16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001

0000:00:0f.0 Communication controller: Lucent Microelectronics 56k WinModem (rev 01)
Subsystem: Askey Computer Corp. Lucent 56k V.90 DF Modem
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 10
Memory at fedffc00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
I/O ports at fc78 [size=8]
I/O ports at f800 [size=256]
Capabilities: [f8] Power Management version 2

0000:00:10.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev 20) (prog-if fa)
Subsystem: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
I/O ports at fc90 [size=16]

0000:00:11.0 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 PMU (rev 09)
Subsystem: ALi Corporation: Unknown device 1533
Flags: medium devsel

0000:00:14.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 5
Memory at fedfe000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]

0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage LT Pro AGP-133 (rev dc) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: Compaq Computer Corporation: Unknown device b11b
Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 9
Memory at fd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
I/O ports at e800 [size=256]
Memory at fecff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [50] AGP version 1.0
Capabilities: [5c] Power Management version 1

0000:02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94306 802.11g (rev 03)
Subsystem: Linksys WPC54G
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10
Memory at 10800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

cthisbear
Posts: 4422
Joined: Sun 29 Jan 2006, 22:07
Location: Sydney Australia

#2 Post by cthisbear »

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php?f=3

Topics that may help:

Try Rudy Puppys defaults by Debernardis
Great for some laptops and Dell.
From this topic..no need to read all...I was prattling on a bit....the last bit below states it all.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 12&t=16791

puppy acpi=strict
acpi=noirq
pci=biosirq
pci=nosort
irqpoll routeirq

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=13458

Also try Xvesa instead of Xorg....works on my sisters
Toshiba laptop..core duo 1,7 with 512 ram ???
Chris

rothmail
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed 11 Apr 2007, 18:55

Re: puppy-215CE-Final.iso won't boot on Compaq Presario 1270

#3 Post by rothmail »

[quote="cthisbear"]http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php?f=3

Topics that may help:

Try Rudy Puppys defaults by Debernardis
Great for some laptops and Dell.
From this topic..no need to read all...I was prattling on a bit....the last bit below states it all.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 12&t=16791

puppy acpi=strict
acpi=noirq
pci=biosirq
pci=nosort
irqpoll routeirq

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=13458

Also try Xvesa instead of Xorg....works on my sisters
Toshiba laptop..core duo 1,7 with 512 ram ???
Chris[/quote]

Thanks for your posting. I tried the various boot options and the result is the same. I wasn't aware there was a debug option. I tried that and here is the result where it hangs:

Compaq 12XL125 machine detected. Enabling interrupts during APM calls.
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16ac)
(This line blank)
(in green) Done
and this is where is hangs. No CD-ROM activity at this point.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

Bruce B

#4 Post by Bruce B »

My trick on old machines in general, (I don't know about genuine Compac machines specifics).

I go into the CMOS setup and disable all so called Advanced Power Managment.

I use additional Kernel arguments as follows:

apm=off acpi=off noapic

sometimes I use ide=nodma - the reason being is the old DMA support doesn't do much anyway. And I've had problems.

Also in this thread there are others parameters, don't hesitate to use them also.

The net result the computers I've installed Puppy work fine, usually the monitor blanks after several minutes but wakes up fine with a keyboard key or mouse movement. The hard drives just run at full speed and don't need to be 'woken up'

User avatar
Dougal
Posts: 2502
Joined: Wed 19 Oct 2005, 13:06
Location: Hell more grotesque than any medieval woodcut

#5 Post by Dougal »

I don't think the boot options are relevant here: they are passed to the kernel and usually solve problems with the part of booting before rc.sysinit.

Rothmail actually did the right thing posting the output of lspci, since the problem is most likely when it's output is used for loading kernel modules.
rc.modules actually has a "skiplist" parameter, with problematic modules, so maybe we need to try and find out which module is causing the freeze-up…

Anyone know how to do that??

Rothmail: you might want to try and google for the devices in your lspci output and see if any of them have issues with the 2.6 kernel (DSL uses a 2.4 kernel). Try and find things that mention freezing or modules not loading…

Another option: You can boot Puppy on another PC, open /etc/rc.d/rc.modules and find the line

Code: Select all

modprobe $MODULE
(line 144 in 2.14)
And before it add

Code: Select all

echo "now loading module $MODULE" >/dev/console
Then shut down and create a 32MB pup_save file.
Then you can copy that pup_save to the problematic computer and boot Puppy on it: the pup_save will be used and hence the "verbose" rc.modules, so you can find out which module freezes your system.
If this works, you can boot DSL, mount the pup_save (mount -t ext2 /where/it/is/pup_save.2fs /mnt/data) and then open rc.modules again and add the offensive module to SKIPLIST.

Another option: rather than making rc.modules verbose, you can comment out the loading of those modules (the param PCIMODS defined somewhere at the top), then it should still boot and you can try and modprobe the various modules manually…
What's the ugliest part of your body?
Some say your nose
Some say your toes
But I think it's your mind

User avatar
adamwheeler
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed 16 May 2007, 02:41
Location: Elmira, NY USA
Contact:

Possible solution to Compaq 1270 prob

#6 Post by adamwheeler »

I managed to boot using pfix=rdsh,#debug. After manually modifying rc.modules and commenting out the last few lines (I cannot recall exactly).

---last lines in rc.modules commented out---
#suggested by Dougal, v2.13 ??
'some file test here' & modprobe -? apm.o ???
-------------------------------------^^^^^^^^^^^--- problem is here...

The system booted and started x when /etc/profile was forced to run.

I was unable to rewrite the CD therefore cannot easily recreate the solution. A simple text mode install to hdd would be a significant help in these cases. I coppied the CD (215CE) to my hdd (/hda1, ext2) and still do not know how to (easily) change this file (rc.modules).

DSL does not support squashfs so no solution there. (I'm running that here also).

If somebody could upload a modified *.sfs file I could easily test it.

I feel the /etc directory should be a separate (uncompressed) file ex. etc_215.img (or this file could override existing config) or any *simple* way to modify a configuration without re-writing the cd would be a significant help in these cases.

Adam.

rothmail
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed 11 Apr 2007, 18:55

pfix=rdsh got to at least the shell

#7 Post by rothmail »

The tip to use pfix=rdsh was helpful, in that I was able to get to the shell while it was booting.

Here is something else interesting, I was able to get Knoppix 5.1.1 that has the kernel 2.6.19 to boot with noapm as a boot option. I tried this with Puppy Linux i(kernel 2.6.18.1) and that didn't get me any further. DSL was using kernel 2.4 and worked fine. I also had used centos 4.4 on this system (which ran too slow) that used kernel 2.6.

I am guessing, but it still sounds like puppy linux has a bug in that the 2.6 kernel works OK on this system with Centos and Knoppix while Puppy Linux won't complete a normal boot.

Thanks for the posting about making changes and saving them, but it seems like additional work that the other Linuxs don't need -- What additional info do I need to collect about this system to help the next version of Puppy Linux to complete a boot on this system? Thanks!

User avatar
Dougal
Posts: 2502
Joined: Wed 19 Oct 2005, 13:06
Location: Hell more grotesque than any medieval woodcut

#8 Post by Dougal »

After you modify rc.modules and manage to boot, all you need to do is shutdown and create a pup_save file on your HD -- the modified rc.modules will be saved to it and used at next boot (rather than the one in the sfs).

You can also just remater the cd and it will include the modified rc.modules.

There is no point in copying the cd image to HD, but if you can create a small inux partition on your HD, it is highly recommended to do a "frugal" install -- that way it boots like a cd, but from the HD.
What's the ugliest part of your body?
Some say your nose
Some say your toes
But I think it's your mind

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