Tiny Core Linux
Tiny Core Base => TCB Q&A Forum => Topic started by: azertyhell on June 06, 2010, 08:02:08 AM
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I accidently clicked on 'remove topic' instead of reply. Damn. I have copied and pasted the original thead below.
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Install problems: be-latin1 kmap and xorg config
« on: June 05, 2010, 05:29:13 AM »
Hi everyone,
I have to installed TC onto an old Dell notebook for my wife. First I want to test from the live CD that all works well. I cannot do a full install onto the 2Gb disc because it is full of data (puppylinux) and her files.
The keyboard is a Belgian layout be-latin1.
1) Xorg
I installed xorg, kmap and graphics. Shutdown X to the console and tried a startx. It did nothing a min, and then returned to the prompt. Nothing was found on any Cntl-Alt-F except F2 which gave a black screen, and F1 which is the console. I tried to mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf.VESA to /etc/X11/xorg.conf but its a read only filesystem. I tried the same in the loop mount point but same error.
2) loadkmap.
This command: loadkmap /usr/share/...../be-latin1.kmap sat there. Now after 25 mins it has not returned to the prompt. My only option is to reboot.
Any hope for this, or is it a lost cause?
Best regards,
S.
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Juanito
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Re: Install problems: be-latin1 kmap and xorg config
« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2010, 05:40:46 AM »
I'm guessing an old dell laptop has an intel graphics chipset - if so, these usually do not want to work with Xorg "confless", which means you'll need a suitable /etc/X11/xorg.conf file - you can usually find something usable by googling on xorg.conf and the name of your laptop.
Otherwise, you could try with Xvesa and 915resolution instead of using Xorg.
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azertyhell
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Re: Install problems: be-latin1 kmap and xorg config
« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2010, 06:11:31 AM »
Hi,
cheers for the note about xorg. Its a Dell CPx from 1996 with an ATI 16Mb chip on it. Cannot remember the exact graphic card. Its max res is 1024x768x16. It works ok with xVesa, but playback of youtube (or flash in general) is impossible. Just choppy video with CPU usage at about 90%. Dragging a window around causes a bit of excessive CPU usage. With PuppyLinux playback is quite acceptable, but it uses Xorg. (Notebook has a Pentium2 / 600Mhz CPU and 384Mb RAM)
However I did delete swap on the notebook and try to install TC into there, but hit a brick wall because the example for grub is menu.lst.
Sadly, I installed UBuntu Remix onto it some months ago to dual boot with puppy. Ubuntu rewrote the grub entries in its partition to be in grub2 format. Due to disc space shortage, and the fact that UbtunRemix could not run well on the PC, I rm'ed everything in the Ubuntu parition except /boot thinking that I would not have to worry about it. Now I cannot create the grub entry, because I think that grub2 thinks people are too stupid to vi menu.lst.
Has anyone got an example I can copy into the grub.cfg for tiny core?
The old menu.lst format was :-
title Tiny Core
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/bzImage quiet
initrd /boot/tinycore.gz
I just want a quick hack to boot the system and test that it works better from the hard disc than from the CD. Perhaps I can then get the keymaps to load and not hang the system.
S.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2010, 06:16:31 AM by azertyhell » Report to moderator 82.173.139.52
batnas
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Re: Install problems: be-latin1 kmap and xorg config
« Reply #3 on: June 05, 2010, 06:33:57 AM »
And for the kmap you need a <
loadkmap < /usr/share/...../be-latin1.kmap
\\Batnas
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azertyhell
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Re: Install problems: be-latin1 kmap and xorg config
« Reply #4 on: June 05, 2010, 10:04:18 AM »
Quote from: azertyhell on June 05, 2010, 06:11:31 AM
, because I think that grub2 thinks people are too stupid to vi menu.lst.
The irony is that I am too silly to work out a grub.cfg
Thank-you for the missing <
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^thehatsrule^
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Re: Install problems: be-latin1 kmap and xorg config
« Reply #5 on: June 05, 2010, 01:25:26 PM »
Quote
I tried to mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf.VESA to /etc/X11/xorg.conf but its a read only filesystem. I tried the same in the loop mount point but same error.
That error should only occur on the loop mount point, not on the ramdisk.
The simplest way to get things working is to try confless. If a xorg.conf is required, try using -configure to generate one. See the extension's .info for more details.
If you prefer to do a manual edit, you could try the ati or r128/mach64 video drivers (guessed these) or look up a config as previously suggested.
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maro
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Re: Install problems: be-latin1 kmap and xorg config
« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2010, 05:57:40 PM »
If your are still struggling with 'menu.lst' (i.e. for legacy GRUB) vs. 'grub.cfg' (i.e. for current GRUB2) I might have a solution. In your example I believe that
menuentry "Tiny Core" {
set root=(hd0,1)
linux /boot/bzImage quiet
initrd /boot/tinycore.gz
}
should be a suitable GRUB2 stanza.
I found the "official" GRUB2 documentation to be rather incomplete, but it contains one page which attempts a comparison between the available commands for either version. Unfortunately the links for the individual commands on that page only go into the legacy GRUB documentation but not into the current version. There are several distribution specific GRUB2 forum sections around, (e.g. for Ubuntu) but all this does not make up for a lack of a good reference documentation. One tutorial that google ranks highly might be worth a look, but a lot of searching could still be required to solve even a simple issue.
Anyway in your case the two really important changes are:
the 'kernel' command is now replaced by 'linux', and
partition counting starts with 1 instead of 0, hence '/dev/hda1' should now be '(hd0,1)'
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azertyhell
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Re: Install problems: be-latin1 kmap and xorg config
« Reply #7 on: Today at 05:23:43 AM »
I thank-you for the grub2 bit. In fact, what I did was run grub and setup grub from scratch. Finally, picked up the courage - I am always carefuller when messing with my wife's PC than mine. No explanation required However the example grub2 you have written is great for me to know.
Now am off to try xorg without xorg.conf, and then more than likely a -configure.
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Update.
I installed xorg, graphics and freetype. Restarted the windows manager.
xvesa started up, and now have a black screen with a right click menu for New Desktop and New Xterm. The nice application selector at the bottom of the screen has vanished.
I want to run the command X -configure, but although the AppManager states that xorg is installed, the binary X and the directory /etc/X11 are missing. This is unsurprising because when I added some other apps, like the file manager and gedit, although it downloaded and installed these, the icons never appeared on the menus. The AppManager stopped 'really' downloading apps after I installed openoffice.
Even if I select gedit and try and download it again, AppManager will state that it is installed, but gedit does not exist on the partition.
I cannot find any useful messages in dmesg.
Perhaps the Dell notebook it far too old to run Tiny Core correctly.
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Perhaps the Dell notebook it far too old to run Tiny Core correctly.
I don't believe so, but it would possibly struggle to run oo2.
I'd recommend to try without loading Xorg-7.4 and see if Xvesa works first. I'd also recommend to use gtk1 apps (beaver, emelfm, gtkfind, gimp1) first and see how that goes before moving on to gtk2 apps.
Note that you can use 'apps audit' button in the panel and select onboot/maintenance to edit /tce/onboot.lst to prevent Xorg, etc from loading on boot.
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xvesa works, but Flash kills the CPU.
OpenOffice runs a little slow, but its not unusable.
What is strange is that Puppy Linux works well. Flash does not kill the CPU ; Neither does OpenOffice. Its very usuable.
As for Xorg. Tiny Core won't install it! It would from the liveCD, but not on a hard disc installation
The user only has to have these apps:
a browser with flash
alsa
openoffice
thunderbird or seamonkey
gphoto2
Ideaily Picasa for photos (or something similar)
Pidgin
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Looks like some network trouble; remove all extensions for which md5sums don't match, reboot, redownload.
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I removed all md5 files, rebooted and tryed again. Still says that xorg is installed and its not.
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A wild guess: Is there somehow still a '/usr/local/tce.installed/Xorg-7.4' file "lurking around"?
I'm not quite sure how that would "survive" a re-boot, but 'tce-load' checks for the presence of that file to determine whether an extension is already installed.
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curaga described to remove the incomplete/corrupted extensions, not just all the md5 files.