Distro for old laptop from Liz

[zlim]

My mouse adapter is a Logitech, as are most of my mice so I can't blame it on a sub-quality adapter.I've had trouble with this HP notbook and pointing devices under linux. One day it likes what is plugged in, the next day it freezes. I'm going to switch to a working plugged in PS/2 optical mouse as soon as it arrives.I'm off to burn some more CDs. I'll try Xubuntu and report back.Thanks Bruno, don't waste alot of time on this headache. I'm willing to accept the old nb needs 98SE and be done with it.

Edited November 18, 2006 by zlim

[Bruno]

Hi LizReading your post #27 again . . . I get the impression the CAT5-USB device is supported under PCLos . . . . is this correct, are you sure ?Also, what is the name/brand of that CAT5-USB device ? Bruno

[ross549]

axcel216's huge windows site... I remember, yep indeed it's tremendous.The USB2PS2 adapter might also be the problem. I encountered that three weeks ago, when switching the keyboard from a MS one to a Logitech one. The latter came with a quality adapter, the former with just standard quality. The Logitech adapter fits in very tight, all others I tried (incl.the one of MS) were just standard quality, they fitted just so and so. Not the Logitech one, since I use that one I have no more problems with the keyboard.

Keep in mind that not all USB mice and keyboards will not work with a PS/2 adapter. Some are USB only. Many have been PS/2 compatible for a while, but now that everyone is using basically the same drivers and that Windows and linux are [for the most part] supporting them out of the box, PS/2 support is going away.Adam

[striker]

All keyboards I used were for PS2 and USB with supplied adapter, or better say - most of them - junk adapter. They just throw in a universal china made junk adapter, the one Logitech supplied was a bit heavier and with a tighter fit.

[Urmas]

Thanks Urmas, I'm downloading the older Dapper Drake, figuring there may have been more problems ironed out in that one.

I installed the "xubuntu-desktop" package in my Ubuntu (now I have Gnome, KDE, OpenBox and XFCE installed ).Verdict after one evening: The default file manager (Thunar) is really, really fast. Despite being light, XFCE seems to be versatile... I'm gonna play a bit more with this one.Thanks, Liz!

[zlim]

Bruno, look at post 24. My gizmo is an AXIS and is supported in any 2.6 kernal from what I read. The name of the file is usbnet.cUrmas, I have Xubuntu up but my mouse is going crazy. It jumps all over the screen. I thought maybe I could use just the touchpad but that doesn't work at all. (I use the F^ key to toggle it on and off - this worked in dsl to calm the mouse down but does nothing in Xandros). If you know any cheatcodes for hyperactive mice-calming, please share.

[Bruno]

Bruno, look at post 24. My gizmo is an AXIS and is supported in any 2.6 kernal from what I read. The name of the file is usbnet.c

Hi Liz . . . I looked for usbnet.c in Mandriva and could not find it . . . I will check other distros as well. BrunoUPDATE: In Mandriva found this though: /lib/modules/2.6.17-5mdv/kernel/drivers/usb/net/usbnet.ko.gzUPDATE2: in SLackware the "bare.i" 2.4.33.3 kernel has the drivers . . . . . and Slackware ( default install ) can run on that hardware ! Maybe not KDE but IceWM as desktop will even run fast.UPDATE3: Vector has it too . . . just do "modprobe usbnet" and run "netconfig" ( same as in Slackware )

[zlim]

The only one of those I'd consider running is Vector but I suspect the older versions of Vector that would work on a 366MHz pentium II with only 128megs of RAM aren't live CDs. Is that correct?As it stands now, I'm not prepared to risk losing the windows install.This notebook doesn't have a burner and my attempts to hook on a USB burner and have it recognized have failed miserably. 98SE isn't the best at getting drivers installed. Every supposed driver that I tried for the Liteon burner (of course I'm told that the computer will immediately recognize it and I don't need drivers - false) tells me I have attached a USB storage device rather than a CD-ROM. I don't have any backup of this computer.If you can find me a live CD of an early Vector, I may try it.As always Bruno thanks for all the hard work you do trying to figure out solutions.

[Bruno]

Well Liz . . . earlier versions might not have the drivers you are looking for, I will do some searching, will let you know. BrunoPS: "Slax" ( Live ), even recent versions should be able to run on that hardware and would have the drivers.

[striker]

there's new version of puppy out there - the zdrv version with loads of kernel drivers and firmware. The standard version doesn't have those. See DW for the links and release notes.http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=03855#0

[zlim]

striker, my first post "Chubby puppy froze". If you could help this explorer with a cheat code (every distro I try freezes at USB). For dsl it was dsl nousb and then it loaded. I forget what I did in Xubuntu (maybe to get past the freeze). But since the mouse jumped all over the place, Xubuntu was useless - not even the touchpad worked. Since puppy seems to be an independent, I'm not sure what cheat code I'd need to use so it doesn't try loading USB and freezing.I'll also look at Slax. I have the Kill Bill edition gathering dust here. I'll throw that in and see what happens. As Colin would say, we are exploring!I just got off the phone with cyberguys and discovered the mouse they showed in the catalog as PS/2 is actually USB with an adapter. I cancelled both the mice I ordered. Now to search elsewhere for a PS/2 mouse.Threw slax in the old nb and got this errorisolinux Disk error 01, AX=4254 drive 9F similar to the Mint Linux error.I put it in the other notebook and it fired right up. I knew I had this running on an old tower I gave away, I just wanted to see if the CD was still good. It is - the old notebook just doesn't like this CD for some reason.Of course I can't login. It doesn't seem to "recognize" any keystrokes I enter.

Edited November 20, 2006 by zlim

[Bruno]

Threw slax in the old nb and got this errorisolinux Disk error 01, AX=4254 drive 9F similar to the Mint Linux error.

Hi Liz . . . . what I am asking myself is: would it not be better to boot the laptop without the CAT-to-USB device plugged in . . . that way you will not have to use cheatcodes. And . . . if you are using a modern distro with recent 2.6 kernel you can just hotplug the CAT-to-USB device after the boot is finished . . . . . . in any case we know what drivers we should "modprobe" so there is no need to have it plugged in at boot. Bruno

[striker]

striker, my first post "Chubby puppy froze". If you could help this explorer with a cheat code (every distro I try freezes at USB). For dsl it was dsl nousb and then it loaded. I forget what I did in Xubuntu (maybe to get past the freeze). But since the mouse jumped all over the place, Xubuntu was useless - not even the touchpad worked. Since puppy seems to be an independent, I'm not sure what cheat code I'd need to use so it doesn't try loading USB and freezing.I'll also look at Slax. I have the Kill Bill edition gathering dust here. I'll throw that in and see what happens. As Colin would say, we are exploring!I just got off the phone with cyberguys and discovered the mouse they showed in the catalog as PS/2 is actually USB with an adapter. I cancelled both the mice I ordered. Now to search elsewhere for a PS/2 mouse.Threw slax in the old nb and got this errorisolinux Disk error 01, AX=4254 drive 9F similar to the Mint Linux error.I put it in the other notebook and it fired right up. I knew I had this running on an old tower I gave away, I just wanted to see if the CD was still good. It is - the old notebook just doesn't like this CD for some reason.Of course I can't login. It doesn't seem to "recognize" any keystrokes I enter.

Liz, I found them after some looking around here and there, maybe it's usable ..?http://puppylinux.org/wikka/BootParms

[zlim]

Thanks Bruno and striker, I'm off to do some reading and downloading.I may try a few lightweight distros with the USB connector unplugged and see what happens. I'll take notes so we can figure out what might be the best distro for this old nb. (If I find one, that will force me to figure out how in the world to Ghost the hd either by getting the external burner recognized or hooking the hd up to another computer via the USB port) so far both these things I've been unable to solve.

[quint]

This might be worth looking into:Fluxbuntu... it is still a "Beta", however. I d/l'd it from:here... and it runs surprisingly well on an old Compaq /w 450MHZ Pentium ... kind of like "DSLinux on steroids".

[zlim]

So far 1. Slax/Kill Bill edition with USB adapter off: booted up twice and both times it ignored the CD and booted up windows 98SE. If I attach the cable, I get an error message.2. dsl adapter unhooked, it still freezes at checking for USB (nothing is attached to either USB port). I had to shut down because ctrl+alt+escape does nothing. 2nd boot, adapter still unplugged, but I typed in dsl nousb so I could get it to boot up. I typed in modprobe usbnet (after connecting the adapter) and get /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/net/mii.o: create_module: Operation not permitted/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/net/mii.o: insmod /lib/module/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/net/mii.o failed/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/net/mii.o: insmod usbnet failedThen I thought maybe if I tried as root, I wouldn't start off with Operation not permittedI tried sudo modprobe usbnet and got no errorsthen I tried sudo run netconfig and got command not found for runI tried sudo netconfig and got command not found for netconfig3. puppy 2.12 sdrvmodprobe usbnet no errors but again with run netconfig or just netconfig I got another command not found I decided to try the network wizard. Although it said that only drivers were listed for pci and not USB and pcmcia, this was not correct. Some of each were listed. First I let the wizard auto probe and it loaded 3c59x module which was a pci card (3 Comm) since I don't have a 3Comm card in the computer, I unloaded it. There was one Asix listed but it was for a pci card and a different chip. I tried two of the usb drivers at76_usb and prism2_usb. Of course neither did anything. My next attemp was to specify a driver so I typed in my specific adapter Asix AX88172USB ethernet driver. It couldn't load that. Last, my final shot and I don't remember how I got this option but it offered to load a windows driver. This seemed like it might just work. I looked thru hda2 (my windows partition) and decided on a driver u2a0.inf (that might not be the correct driver). It said it wasn't the driver.Tomorrow (make that later today) I'll examine the adapter driver and the correct path and then fire up puppy and see if I can get the driver loaded.In puppy, I was able to get the video to 1024x768x24 and I have sound. If I get a connection, I'll consider running this live and saving my sessions to the hard drive. I do like the way puppy saves your configurations either to a CD or the hard drive so you don't have to keep making the same settings everytime you fire up a live session.If I get anything connected, this is gonna be my desktop that's me a penguin drifting on an iceberg waiting for Bruno to throw me a line!

Edited November 21, 2006 by zlim

[striker]

Found the Datasheet for the Asix AX88172USB ethernet driver:http://people.freebsd.org/~wpaul/ASIX/Ax88172.PDF

[striker]

If I'm not erring NetBSD 3.0 is supporting this one, see:http://groups.google.nl/group/fido7.ru.san...b427c1fbb45dc63Put this : AX88172USB in FF Findbox and let it search in the post above.If I did understand correctly it uses a driver from FreeBSD.

[Bruno]

Hi Liz . . . . . . It looks like that Puppy is maybe the best candidate with the most promises to get indeed connected. Using the driver from the Windows partition is what "ndiswrapper" usually does for WiFi, so why would the same technique not be used for your CAT-to-USB tool ? It does make sense ! A little note: "sudo run netconfig" can't be correct, "sudo netconfig" makes more sense, "netconfig" is a command used in Slackware related distros.I hope you get lucky with that Puppy today Bruno

[zlim]

striker, my first link in post #24, says the same thing that your link does. The file is axe(4) and it explains how to compile the driver into the kernel and load the module at boot time. The problem is, all this is way beyond my ability.I was able to find the inf file in two spots in Windows at C:\Windows and at C:\Windows\INF I'm sure it is the same file Ax88172.inf weighing a mere 6.48kbI'm going to see if I have any luck getting puppy to use it.After this try, I must put this adventure on hold for quite a few days. Thanksgiving on Thursday here. Since my "computer room" is also the guest bedroom, I'll have limited access to two of my computers (the one I'm trying to get puppy working on). I'll pick it up again next week.Bruno from this link http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?c...g&section=8should I be doing ipconfig instead of netconfig?Well, I loaded ndiswrapper and found the windows driver it appears to load but doesn't. So it looks like that doesn't work.

Edited November 21, 2006 by zlim

[Bruno]

Bruno from this link http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?c...g&section=8should I be doing ipconfig instead of netconfig?

Hi Liz . . . . . Well "netconfig" is a Slackware related command and works on Slack based distros. Ifconfig ( not ipconfig ) is a command you could probably use in puppy because it is RH based. . . . :After loading the module with "modprobe" you can do:

# ifdown eth0# ifconfig eth0 10.0.0.8 netmask 255.255.255.0 # ifup eth0

Where 10.0.0.8 is the IP lease your computer should get from the router . . . in your case it might be something like 192.168.0.1 . . . depends on the IP range available.After the "ifup eth0" you should be able to use the browser and surf to the forum.( see for better explaining of this: http://learnlinux.tsf.org.za/courses/build...in/ch01s05.html ) Bruno

[zlim]

I'm finally tackling this again. I tried the other day and my mouse went nuts. I had about 8 dillo windows open and had no control over the mouse. By trial and error, I've learned that I need to use the notebook keyboard and touchpad to configure the screen to 1024x768x24 before I attempt to touch the mouse. After that's done, I can turn off the touchpad and the mouse acts normal.I did modprobe usbnet and got the result ifdownsh-3.00then I did ifdown eth0 and got /etc/network/interfaces: No such file or directorythen I decided maybe I needed ifdownsh eth0 but that gave command not foundAny more ideas Bruno? If not, I'll consider getting this on the internet in a linux distro that works on this old notebook isn't possible using the adapter I have.I'm also trying to figure out where I can get a copy of axe(4) driver. It was written in 2004 and supports the device I'm using but since I don't have anything freebsd nor a distro running the 2.6 kernel, I have no idea how to get this.

The axe driver provides support for USB Ethernet adapters based on the ASIX Electronics AX88172 USB 2.0 chipset.

Edited November 28, 2006 by zlim

[Bruno]

I did modprobe usbnet and got the result ifdownsh-3.00

Hi Liz . . . . . . not really clear what you are saying here . . . was "ifdownsh-3.00" the reply you got on the command modprobe usbnet ??Is there a native tool for configuring network in Puppy ?? . . Because you could try to use that one once the modprobe usbnet was successful. Bruno

[zlim]

Bruno, when I did open terminal I get 3.00# as a promptI entered modprobe usbnet and on the next line appears ifdown.sh-3.00#I have no idea if that means it works or it doesn't work.I did open the networking wizard last week and got three unusable results.a) first I selected autoprobe, it loaded 3c59x module which turns out is a 3Comm PCI card (since I don't have a 3Comm PCI card in the computer, I wasn't sure what it was doing) I let it load the driver and of course had no internet connection.b ) next attempt I looked over my choices for anything usb and decided to load whatever driver looked "interesting". I picked two at76_usb and prism2_usb No I didn't load both at once. I load a driver, then I test my internet connection. When I get errors, I unload the driver and try another.c) my last attempt was to try and load a windows driver - it wanted the inf file so I mounted hda2, went to/mnt/hda2/windows/inf and selected ax88172.inf I don't remember the exact wording but it didn't load the infI get an error dns can't solve usrToday I spent some time looking through the files in puppy. I can't find a networking folder anywhere. Does this get created when I've successfully got a network setup? In particular, I was looking in /etc/networkingMy thinking was if I could get the axe(4) driver from anyone running a 2.6 kernel, I could put that driver in the networking folder and maybe use the wizard to load the driver.From my reading, I can get it to load at startup if I place this lineif_axe_load="YES"in loader.conf

Edited November 29, 2006 by zlim

[Bruno]

Sorry Liz . . .I had an answer prepared this morning but simply forgot to type and post it :'(Anyway, here it is: I did read somewhere ( can not find the link anymore ) that for ndiswrapper you need to copy the .sys driver file as well as the .inf one over to a (new) folder on your linux partition . . and then direct ndiswrapper to that folder.As for the /etc/networking: have a look in /etc/sysconfig/networking you might have more luck finding files there.And the 2.6 kernel . . . is that Puppy not using the 2.6 ?? . . Is that the latest version ? I see on distrowatch that the 2.02 and the 2.12 should have the 2.6 kernel. Bruno

[zlim]

I'm not sure what kernel it is using. Is there a way to find out?Can I search for the axe(4) driver to see if it is included in 2.12 that I'm running? Can I do something like whereis axe(4)? I'm going to fire up windows, copy the sys and inf to a floppy, then I'll fire up puppy and place them carefully in a new folder where I can find them. Even if I don't get it on the internet, I'm learning how to find my way around the file system which is always helpful.Maybe I need to hang around the puppy forum and do some extensive reading in the beginners section.

Edited November 30, 2006 by zlim

[Bruno]

Hi LizThe command "uname -r" will show you the kernel version

Even if I don't get it on the internet, I'm learning how to find my way around the file system which is always helpful.

Maybe true . . . but still it would be nice if we were able to connect it Bruno

[Urmas]

I'm learning how to find my way around the file system which is always helpful.

Seen this?

[zlim]

No I have never seen that before. Thanks Urmas. That looks like something I should make into a poster and hang in a prominent place.I have to shrink the image a wee bit, then I shall print it out.

[striker]

Liz, just copy the image to the Desktop, fire up kword - set it in landscape mode - and insert the image in it. It fits pefectly on A4 format and print outs out nicely. ;)BTW: thanks Urmas, that's a keeper.!