Problems installing Debian on old laptop
Hello all,
Am trying to install Debian on a fairly old laptop (manufactured 1998),
as I've broken my old one (flying hard drives and laptop LCD's doesn't
mix well together) and can't afford a new one right now. The laptop is a
Pico Systems (long since gone out of business - good riddance)
Silvernote with the following spec:
Mobile P1 MMX 233MHz (I have a P2 233MHz processor that fits but the
case/processor fan has failed, so have gone back to old CPU to prevent
overheating)
192 MB RAM upgraded from 128MB (maxed out)
40GB IBM Travelstar hard drive (upgraded from 3GB) dated Dec 2002
430TX chipset
PIIX4 southbridge
NeoMagic MagicGraph 128XD video chipset
Latest possible BIOS (either 8th March 1999 or 3rd August 1999)
I've tried Knoppix 3.8.1 and it works perfectly fine (if a bit slow).
I've installed Windows 2000 on it and it works perfectly fine. When
trying to boot Debian (using the 3.1 r0 netboot CD) to install, it won't
work at all:
==============================
Booting from CD-ROM
ISOLINUX 2.04 2003-04-16 Copyright (C) 1994-2003 H. Peter Anvin
Press F1 for help, or ENTER to boot:
Loading /install/vmlinuz..............
Loading /install/initrd.gz..............................
Ready.
==============================
and at this point it crashes completely. Pressing ctrl_alt+del works
fine though. I've tried the CD-ROM in my broken laptop and it boots up
fine, and I've tried a few Debian install CD-ROMs in the laptop and same
problem.
I tried booting Ubuntu (as a test, I much prefer to use Debian on such
an old laptop) and it works fine, and I was able to install Ubuntu
successfully on the laptop but when I reboot for the first time, GRUB
crashes when loading itself (i.e. before displaying the kernel list)
I just found out right now if I remove the hard drive and try the
install CD, it works perfectly fine. Strange!
The hard drive is laid out as follows:
/dev/hda1 9.8gb windows
/dev/hda2 27GB linux
/dev/hda3 361MB (I assume swap - Ubuntu chose the partitions)
with no more free space or partitions anywhere.
So what am I doing wrong and how do I fix this problem please?
Thanks very much for your help in advance!
Regards - Piers
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