Bin Or Linux?

[OnOff]

From browsing it appears that if I have a Matrox video card in this pc then it might be the reason I'm having issues as they're know with later versions of Lubuntu! Got to double check what card is in there.

 

[steptoe]

when runnining Lubuntu press

CTRL F2

I think,

hang on, I'll boot into Lubuntu and tell you how to do it

 

[steptoe]

at about 25% of the 'select and install software' part you should have a screen giving you some options,

space selects,

select

minimal install

and

LXDE desktop

 

[steptoe]

correction

at 15%

and just select

minimal

 

[OnOff]

correction

at 15%

and just select

minimal

Cheers. Will try again but honestly don't remember this option on ANY of the installs I've tried! What I did have was the install process stopping and asking for new media in the form of 12.04 Precise Pangolin. I just ejected the CD and put it back in. Waited for the CD to be recognised and hit Continue.

 

[steptoe]

Im wondering if USB is different,

oh, and you may be better selecting LXDE desktop as well

Im doing another install now so I know better how to explain it to ypou

 

[OnOff]

Maybe getting somewhere...............

Downloaded the mini.iso for 13.04 Raring Ringtail. Seemed to install without major issue AND got the option for a Lubuntu Minimal install. So seemingly all good until the boot screen below. Asked for username and password, duly put them in seemingly but then what?



What do I do, the text just ends in "~$"

Cheers

EDIT: I "discovered" the command "startx" so tried typing that in and hitting enter.............lots of on screen action of scrolling Selecting/Unpacking/Installing coming up. At the end of all this tried Startx "again" and now the "Desktop " is WORSE than before:

 

[OnOff]

Well I've tried Slax. Burnt the 220MB or so ISO to a CD-RW and tried that. Seemed to be loading OK, scrolling dark screen with white text on etc. Then this screen with the mouse arrow on, the outline of some lettering?

Moving the mouse just fills the screen with "snow":

 

[steptoe]

ok, Ive done a bit of poking around,

1st,

you are NOT going to get *buntu of any form running on that machine to any decent standard,

Lubuntu minimal might just about scrape it,

but, seems we have an issue with your graphics card needing backdated drivers that arent on any newer .iso's

if we could get something running on it we could find out what the graphics card is,

from what I understand [and thats not much] it seems to be trying to use some of your very precious ram to try and accelerate the graphics card,

what sort of slot is the graphics card in?

FWIW, Ive had ubuntu running on 256 ram with a P3, albeit very very badly, but, Lubuntu minimal flew on it [relatively speaking] ,

Ive also got an ancient laptop [pre 2000] that a friend gave me to mess about on, it runs puppy or DSL really well, even has wi-fi on a slot in card

can you get a LIVE CD to boot on it, even if its really bad, we could run 

lshw  to find out your specs

 

[steptoe]

have a look here

 

[OnOff]

I think it has either a Matrox MGA G250 or G400 in an AGP slot. I did find this:

http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/HP-HOWTO/hp-hardware.html

Don't t know if it helps - suggests some sort of Linus support? For both the 250 & 450 it says "Yes XFree 4.1.0 Rem (mga)"

..............what does that mean then?

Just can't believe Linux is more graphics hungry than Windoze!

I might be able to find an old card maybe but whether it'll be OK with Linux I don't know!

 

[steptoe]

try

ctrl/alt/F2

that should open a terminal

then

sudo apt-get update
xfree is the old version of xorg, basically the graphics bit of the OS, so your card should work ok.....

 

[OnOff]

try

ctrl/alt/F2

that should open a terminal

then

sudo apt-get updatexfree is the old version of xorg, basically the graphics bit of the OS, so your card should work ok.....

What, you mean ctrl/alt/F2 at the dodgy looking desktop? Is a "terminal" then like a window?

 

[steptoe]

yep, it will get you a text only window up

have you tried

Slitaz , its a snazzy little GUI, and pretty small.

if you do get a terminal up you could also try

sudo lshwthat will list your hardware

 

[OnOff]

Just had a thought.......................I can run DSL on it (though the graphics are visible it's VERY "blocky" and not at all pretty). Assume I can do the "sudo...." hardware checks in DSL? All seems to work from the DSL CD. I tried a "frugal" install to the HDD but ran into some trouble with partitioning the disc etc. Can't remember the message.

Should be getting the PC at home soon so I can play to my hearts content!

 

[steptoe]

Just had a thought.......................I can run DSL on it (though the graphics are visible it's VERY "blocky" and not at all pretty). Assume I can do the "sudo...." hardware checks in DSL? All seems to work from the DSL CD. I tried a "frugal" install to the HDD but ran into some trouble with partitioning the disc etc. Can't remember the message.

Should be getting the PC at home soon so I can play to my hearts content!

yep, get it to your place,

and run DSL, the other thing, you may be able to put a 'nicer' desktop(maybe LXDE) on it in DSL, remember, its an OS with a GUI in 50MB    so something has to give at the install stage,

while you are waiting, have a look at slitaz, it has a snazzy GUI , but whether or not it will run on 128 I dont know, I had 256 to play with.

 

[OnOff]

A bit here about low RAM systems on SliTaz:

http://doc.slitaz.org/en:guides:lowramcd

 

[steptoe]

yer, thats for running a LIVE CD, ie, NOT installing it, but running it from ram,

have you noticed they have got it to run on 9mb of ram 

if I get a chance over next couple of days I dig out this old old laptop of mine and strip it down to 128 [if its not already] and see what I can run on it.

 

[OnOff]

Oh well! Spent a tenner on half a gig of secondhand  RAM from the States to give me a few more options maybe?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Vectra-VL600-500-600B-512MB-KIT-2-256MB-MEMORY-RAM-/350673647854?pt=US_Memory_RAM_&hash=item51a5c738ee

 

[steptoe]

:Applaud

you will deffo [maybe] get something to work now,

time for multiboot methinks,