Puppy Racy and An Old IBM Thinkpad

[puponmanyoldlaptops]

I got a Thinkpad 600X for only $5US recently. I tried Puppy 4.2.1 but during the boot, the optical drive (in fact several I tried) was not recognized so I couldn't use it to finish the install.

In addition, there was a brief warning that flashed about ruining the IBM serial eeprom. Kinda scary.

I tried Lupu 5.2.8 with the same results.

I then installed Ubuntu 10.04LTS. It allowed a complete install but at the first re-boot the file system had to check and repair itself.

About ready to recycle the Thinkpad, I decided to give Racy a shot.

Wouldn't you know it? Racy is the only Linux I tried that let the optical drive be recognized and used in the GUI after install and reboot.

I played a couple of music CDs with Pmusic to verify consistent readability.

It must have something to do with the kernel version and loaded/available modules, and I don't know how come there has to be such a divergence in Linux structures to let one version work when another could ruin the IBM serial eeprom.

Wish I had a deeper understanding of it all. Anybody out there willing to help me "get it"?

puponmanyoldlaptops

[RetroTechGuy]

I got a Thinkpad 600X for only $5US recently. I tried Puppy 4.2.1 but during the boot, the optical drive (in fact several I tried) was not recognized so I couldn't use it to finish the install.

In addition, there was a brief warning that flashed about ruining the IBM serial eeprom. Kinda scary.

I tried Lupu 5.2.8 with the same results.

I then installed Ubuntu 10.04LTS. It allowed a complete install but at the first re-boot the file system had to check and repair itself.

About ready to recycle the Thinkpad, I decided to give Racy a shot.

Wouldn't you know it? Racy is the only Linux I tried that let the optical drive be recognized and used in the GUI after install and reboot.

I played a couple of music CDs with Pmusic to verify consistent readability.

It must have something to do with the kernel version and loaded/available modules, and I don't know how come there has to be such a divergence in Linux structures to let one version work when another could ruin the IBM serial eeprom.

Wish I had a deeper understanding of it all. Anybody out there willing to help me "get it"?

puponmanyoldlaptops

I've seen something along that lines a few times. It has to do with the type of CDROM hardware or the connection -- partway through the boot, the drive remounts (and the hardware was identified as something other than initially there), and since the boot hardware is not as intended, it then "disappears".

I don't know about the eeprom warning...

So Racy ran, is that OK for you, or did you want another version running?

Did you try Wary? Or Lupu5.25 Retro:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... ppy-5.2.5/

I'm running the latter (5.25) on my old 333MHz Compaq laptop.

[James C]

I got a Thinkpad 600X for only $5US recently. I tried Puppy 4.2.1 but during the boot, the optical drive (in fact several I tried) was not recognized so I couldn't use it to finish the install.

In addition, there was a brief warning that flashed about ruining the IBM serial eeprom. Kinda scary.

I tried Lupu 5.2.8 with the same results.

I then installed Ubuntu 10.04LTS. It allowed a complete install but at the first re-boot the file system had to check and repair itself.

About ready to recycle the Thinkpad, I decided to give Racy a shot.

Wouldn't you know it? Racy is the only Linux I tried that let the optical drive be recognized and used in the GUI after install and reboot.

I played a couple of music CDs with Pmusic to verify consistent readability.

It must have something to do with the kernel version and loaded/available modules, and I don't know how come there has to be such a divergence in Linux structures to let one version work when another could ruin the IBM serial eeprom.

Wish I had a deeper understanding of it all. Anybody out there willing to help me "get it"?

puponmanyoldlaptops

I've seen something along that lines a few times. It has to do with the type of CDROM hardware or the connection -- partway through the boot, the drive remounts (and the hardware was identified as something other than initially there), and since the boot hardware is not as intended, it then "disappears".

I don't know about the eeprom warning...

So Racy ran, is that OK for you, or did you want another version running?

Did you try Wary? Or Lupu5.25 Retro:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... ppy-5.2.5/

I'm running the latter (5.25) on my old 333MHz Compaq laptop.

Actually Lucid 525 Retro is here

http://www.smokey01.com/JamesC/uploads/ ... 0.5-v4.iso

and the thread is at

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 627#521627

I still run it on several of my older boxes and it still seems to work well.

[puponmanyoldlaptops]

I did try Puppy 4.2.1, My Wolfe 02x, Lupu 5.x and they all suffered the disappearing CD Drive Syndrome.

Really, for whatever as-yet-to-be-foretold-reason Racy was the only distro that
let the thinkpad work normally.