I have installed Puppy 5.1.1 on a Compaq Presario 5030 as the only operating system and have a couple questions about it. First, how do I make it boot from the harddrive instead of the live cd? I would prefer that very much. Second, I am trying to get online with it and have hooked up a Belkin wireless G MIMO router to it. It wants the BSSID, and I do not know what that is or where to find it. Please help! I want to get this computer up and running and online! Thanks!!
ok.. first off.. how have you installed puppy? .. full or frugal second.. bssid is the broadcast ip put out by a wireless network router or access point.. you have to scan for one look on the puppy forums.. theres a good chance 5.1.1 is broken again.. it seems erratic from my few tests.. I prefer 4.12
It is a full installation. I will look on the puppy forums on how to scan for the bssid. Thanks for your info.
Just FYI .. I had a go at installing 5.1.1 last night (during a bored 20 mins waiting for a hdd to restore it's bad sectors) and had the same no boot problem. http://www.brighthub.com/computing/linux/articles/20504.aspx A quick look on the puppy forums suggested a lot of people are also having problems not only with that but also wireless. http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php?f=31 As it's not "straight" linux it's always best to check the forums and faq's first... There are reasons I stick to debian on my lappys I think I'll have a play about with it again later.. it annoys me when things don't work the way they should.
Thanks again. As a more experienced user of Linux, what distro would you recommend for a computer with only 192MB RAM? That has been my main problem so far. Most distros won't even install from a CD because of the limited RAM.
slackware 192mb's ram.. thats heaps and heaps.. I have debian running on one with 32... it's a pentium 90 core system.. then x, fluxbox, rox and a few apps.. it won't run all the bloat that goes with the full desktops.. avoid gnome and kde.. xfce4 and a few of the other light desktops should be good. Of course you don't have to run linux.. how about some proper unix? http://www.midnightbsd.org/download/ a very useful handbook for getting started with unix http://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/newhandbook/GettingStarted/ A very different way of doing things.. and works very well on systems with limited resources.
Thanks for the help. I will probably give those a try. Keep an eye out for me to post progress and, most likely, more questions. All my previous experience is with either windows or (old-school) DOS, so this is all pretty new to me. Any particular distro of debian I should look for? Again, thanks.
I downlaoded and tried to install Debian 5.0. I only downloaded the first disk from the official site. I tried to install it using first the graphical interface ... memory overrun (all the lights on my keyboard flashing) after entering the country and language information. Tried the non-graphical installation with the same results at the same place. I don't know what is going on. I am thinking about trying the Unix you mentioned earlier. I just hope that it has a gui. If you have any advice, let me know. Thanks for your help to date.
the unix will give you fun.. the most user friendly is freeBSD .. openBSD follows.. the others are rather hands on steep learning curve. Midnight has a great partitioning tool.. better than the others.. BSD does't use a partition structure like anything you have seen before... now then.. about the strange debian error.. deb5 is lenny? .. shouldn't give any problems but I have only ever used the netinstall image not disk1 of the full set. Are you sure your ram is all ok? and that you have the right disk for your hardware architecture?? Seems like one to have a look in the bugtracker for if thats all in order.. I mostly use the old etch installer.. and literally dump a core system on then add the bits I need. There is a trick.. run something from a live cd.. and make a swap partition then boot with "swapon" .. solves low memory problems.. but I stuck lenny on a beastie with only 128 last week (network file and print server) with no problems. Low memory shouldn't be a problem with linux.. http://kagashe.blogspot.com/2008/07/debian-rocks-on-32-mb-ram.html I think somewhere something is going wrong.. annoyingly these days disk1 of a lot of installers seems to be pandering to the "I must have a GUI for everything" mindset sheeple.. Not necessary at all.. in fact really not required.. Heres an example of something more like the way I do it.. http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/apds03.html.en .. not beginners stuff really.. and requires something like a working system (or a previously partitioned drive) .. I use dsl or smalllinux .. sorry.. I'm cheeky and it has the same debian tools we need.. it's how I install on 16-32mb machines Another odd thing.. some hardware doesn't seem to get on booting from a dvd drive.. a proper cd rom drive works just great tho.. never understood why. I'm mystified by your error.. debian should drop to low memory mode to install.. you could try pulling a stick out and getting to 128.. it might be on that crossover point, but really the only time I get those kinds of errors is when the ram has gone bad.
