• From: Scotland, Cold
  • Registered: 2009-01-17
  • Posts: 850

Topic: Mehall's Cyrix Thread

Right, so this thread is gonna be all about the Cyrix M-II powered computer I'm installing ubuntu CLI then running the #! lite script on.

Here's what I posted the system as in the "Your Crunchbang linux system" sticky:

Name: Unknown/Possible Custom (2nd or 3rd Hand system)
Motherboard:
Processor: Cyrix MII 333MHz (Cyrix = bad for Floating point, so roughly equivalent to a 250-300MHz Pentium)
RAM: 64MD
HDD: 3.2GB Samsung SV0322A
Optical Drive: CDRW (If anyone cares, taken from HP Pavilion 8635)
Graphics: S3 Dirge/VX Q5E2BB (according to google, 4MB)
Sound: inbuilt
Network: Realtek RTL1389
Monitor: Same as above (same monitor)

I've changed the HDD as I had a 10GB Seagate spare. This allows me to keep my Puppy Linux install available [=

I had issues with the ubuntu CLI installer freezing at the partitioner at various places after doing various things, so i'm currently fixing it the only way a hard disk can truly be fixed:


DBAN!!!!!

Oh, and mods: please don't bitch at me about any double-triple-quadruple etc posts, this is gonna be a "whats happening now" kinda thread.

Oh, and I know it was an issue with probably either fragmentation or minor-corruption probably, as I have been able to do a couple of things with partitioners etc, but I can;t even boot from the HDD, and I believe it had win98 on it before the DBAN.

Ex-KDE user.
Collects old PC's (Coz he can't afford new ones =P)
Crunchbang @ Distrowatch
My Blog (updated infrequently, and on the #! Planet too.)

Mehall's Website

  • From: Lincoln, UK
  • Registered: 2008-11-20
  • Posts: 4,246

Re: Mehall's Cyrix Thread

Processor: Cyrix MII 333MHz (Cyrix = bad for Floating point, so roughly equivalent to a 250-300MHz Pentium)

My money is on the Puppy, but good luck! Seriously, I think you will be very lucky to get a usable system with the hardware you are using. Still, it will be interesting to read how you get on, go for it! smile

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corenominal's Website

  • From: Scotland, Cold
  • Registered: 2009-01-17
  • Posts: 850

Re: Mehall's Cyrix Thread

corenominal wrote:

Processor: Cyrix MII 333MHz (Cyrix = bad for Floating point, so roughly equivalent to a 250-300MHz Pentium)

My money is on the Puppy, but good luck! Seriously, I think you will be very lucky to get a usable system with the hardware you are using. Still, it will be interesting to read how you get on, go for it! smile


tbh with you, the issue is the RAM, not the processor.


Also: the seagate is borked, trying it with another Seagate (this one's 6GB I think)

Ex-KDE user.
Collects old PC's (Coz he can't afford new ones =P)
Crunchbang @ Distrowatch
My Blog (updated infrequently, and on the #! Planet too.)

Mehall's Website

  • From: Scotland, Cold
  • Registered: 2009-01-17
  • Posts: 850

Re: Mehall's Cyrix Thread

Well now.

Having real issues getting past that "Starting the partitioner" stage. I got past it, but the dialog box was all screwy. Technically 8.10 CLI should install on this system, but I can;t even get past the partitioning. And I can't even find a method to skip the partitioner if I've already made partitions (which I could do)

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1044917


Thats the thread for this "issue", since it's upstream.

Ex-KDE user.
Collects old PC's (Coz he can't afford new ones =P)
Crunchbang @ Distrowatch
My Blog (updated infrequently, and on the #! Planet too.)

Mehall's Website

  • From: Scotland, Cold
  • Registered: 2009-01-17
  • Posts: 850

Re: Mehall's Cyrix Thread

I'm going the whole 9 Yards with this.

Partition Manager still being annoying and I don't wanna risk trying it with the disk I know I can install linux to (the Puppy disk) because it's too small a HDD to use for ubuntu, and I really don't wanna lose my Puppy install.

So whats my solution you must be asking yourself. Give up? Hahaha.... no, not yet wink

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Insta … thFloppies

This method is being chosen purely because it uses Debian's partitioner, rather than ubuntu's (:

If this doesn't work, I might actually have to give in =o

Ex-KDE user.
Collects old PC's (Coz he can't afford new ones =P)
Crunchbang @ Distrowatch
My Blog (updated infrequently, and on the #! Planet too.)

Mehall's Website

  • Registered: 2008-12-13
  • Posts: 361

Re: Mehall's Cyrix Thread

One thing you can do, due to the very nice generic kernels these days, is install the system on another machine then move the HDD over.

Also, isn't the Cryrix a i586? You might hit some issues with some of the packages that exploit CPU features (mplayer, vlc, even the likes of GTK/Cairo). If the CPU doesn't have MMX and you hit issues I'd suggest grabbing a older distro or *shudder* build Gentoo or it's ilk.

IIRC, Ubuntu is built for i686 now, isn't it?

Nik_Doof's Website

  • From: Scotland, Cold
  • Registered: 2009-01-17
  • Posts: 850

Re: Mehall's Cyrix Thread

So I think the HDD controller is borked.

Dunno how I can boot that Puppy install, but all the problems I've had are related to the HDD.

I installed ubuntu by way of Debian floppies, rebooted, and grub failed. booted the UBCD, and found that it wasn't finding an initrd.img file =[

So I put the HDD in my current  #! computer and installed ubuntu CLI.

Grub fail again on reboot once I moved the disk over.



So I guess It's puppy or bust. *shrug* oh well. I know I should be able to get at least ubuntu CLI on this system, but something's borked on it.

Also: my original #! system has borked it's network interfaces >=[

So I've booted from the #! live disc and I'm gonna edit the /etc/network/interfaces file. (commenting out anything that looks like it might be causing the system to hang on boot, on both kernels on system AND in recovery mode also)

Ex-KDE user.
Collects old PC's (Coz he can't afford new ones =P)
Crunchbang @ Distrowatch
My Blog (updated infrequently, and on the #! Planet too.)

Mehall's Website