Installing Ubuntu on a REALLY old computer

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Yeah, when I think about it that would make sense with
canonical/ubuntu's stance on proprietary/edge case legal stuff such as reverse
engineered ntfs drivers.

Clearly those who did knoppix dont see it that way.

And I bet ubuntu fixes it sometime too.

Correct, command line is a must.

So Yousuf's original was clearly just plain wrong.

 

[George Macdonald]

As far as I know the boot standard was simply the floppy boot standard.
Ie, the cdrom was/is just treated as if it were a floppy drive and the
first sectors of the disk read off and jumped to. All this required was
that the bios be able to read raw sectors from the device.

There were/are two ways of booting under the El Torito standard - one was
floppy emulation, the other was more like a HDD emulation. It wasn't
uncommon in the early days for a BIOS to not handle one of them.

 

[George Macdonald]

The CD-ROM works fine for non-boot purposes. Once the OS is running, it
acts just fine.

Found out something strange about it. The only boot CD it seems to
recognize is its own original Windows 95 rescue CD, and nothing else.
There's two possibilities here: (1) it doesn't like booting from burned
CD's, just stamped ones, or (2) it is requiring a proprietary boot
format. In the days of Windows 95, very few systems could boot from CD,
you always needed at least a boot floppy which would then go to CD to
install Windows. So the fact that this is probably one of the earliest
systems with a bootable CD would indicate that maybe it's a proprietary
boot format.

There were early El Torito BIOS implementations which only worked with
"floppy emulation" boot mode and vice versa. I definitely recall a system
which would boot from emulation CDs but not with Microsoft OS bootable CDs
- this seems to be the converse case. If all else fails you could always
try a boot manager

 

[Mouser]

....And the responses from nearly everyone support my point about endless
pages of invective.

 

[YKhan]

Nope, if that was what was done, the HP site would have said that.

The only thing that the HP website talked about was how to boot the
original recovery CD, and nothing else. Nothing else is guaranteed it
seems.

Yousuf Khan

 

[YKhan]

Does the machine have a floppy drive? You can boot from floppy in order to
install Linux.

Actually it does have a floppy drive, but there are no floppy disks
available. Besides even if we did get a floppy disk to boot from,
there's no guarantee that the drive even works any longer. The perils
of old technology.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Quite a few of the cdrom drives of that era didnt like burnt CDs.

Easy to try that possibility by replacing it with a modern drive.

Yeah, we did try that too. Took a relatively modern DVD burner
(pre-dual-layer though) from their other system and put it on here,
exact same result. Also tried an intermediate-generation 32X CD burner,
just for completeness -- all exactly the same.

If as George MacDonald suggests that the El Torito standard was not
completely implemented in this BIOS, then some CD-ROMs will not boot up,
no matter how modern the drive is that it attached to it.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

There were early El Torito BIOS implementations which only worked with
"floppy emulation" boot mode and vice versa. I definitely recall a system
which would boot from emulation CDs but not with Microsoft OS bootable CDs
- this seems to be the converse case. If all else fails you could always
try a boot manager

Well, unfortunately it's now too late to put a boot manager on it. The
previous OS has been completely wiped off of its hard drive, and now
it's simply a matter of either reinstalling Windows 95 on it from its
recovery CD, or getting one of these Linux distros onto its hard disk
from another system.

What are these Linux true image CD's? Maybe we can install one of these
things and have it complete its own installation from its own hard drive?

Yousuf Khan

 

[Nuno J. Silva (aka NJSG)]

A 12-07-2006 20:45, Yousuf Khan escreveu:

Well, we did try to boot from a burned Win XP CD for kicks, and it
didn't boot off of that either. Don't have any other copies of Win 95 or
Win 98 lying around here anymore to try out.

Yousuf Khan

Try SmartBootManager.

I've a Pentium machine which was refusing to boot from linux CD's. I
installed SBM in a floppy, and I booted the computer using the floppy.
Now I'm able to boot CD's via the CD-ROM option of SBM.

(Note that there's a problem with some computers (like my pentium) - the
CD-ROM drive is not listed when I boot SBM. I've solved this following
the procedures listed in SBM FAQs.)

--
Nuno J. Silva (aka NJSG)
Lisbon, Portugal
Homepage: <http://njsg.no.sapo.pt/>
Registered Linux User #402207 - http://counter.li.org

Using Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7
Gentoo Linux -- Linux 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 i686 Mobile Pentium II
Intel Pentium II (80686) Deschutes - 334Mhz -- 256 Mbs SDRAM
Intel Mobile Pentium II (80686) - 300 Mhz -- 64 Mbs SDRAM
Intel Pentium (80586) - 166 Mhz -- 48 Mbs RAM

-=-=-
“Linux,... because life is too short for reboots!â€


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[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

The only thing that the HP website talked about was
how to boot the original recovery CD, and nothing else.

That is just plain wrong.

Nothing else is guaranteed it seems.

And that too. If you cant boot say 98 and XP distribution
CDs on that system, they would say so in the FAQ.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Yeah, we did try that too. Took a relatively modern DVD burner
(pre-dual-layer though) from their other system and put it on here,
exact same result. Also tried an intermediate-generation 32X CD
burner, just for completeness -- all exactly the same.

If as George MacDonald suggests that the El Torito standard was not completely
implemented in this BIOS, then some CD-ROMs will not boot up, no matter how modern the
drive is that it attached to it.

Sure, but its unlikely that if that was the case, it wouldnt
say so in the FAQ, because plenty would try to boot
distribution CDs of stuff like 98, XP, Ghost etc.

Did you try resetting the bios completely as it documents ?

 

[Rod Speed]

George Macdonald wrote

Well, unfortunately it's now too late to put a boot manager on it.

Nope, that one I cited will still do that now.

The previous OS has been completely wiped off of its hard drive, and now it's simply a
matter of either reinstalling Windows 95 on it from its recovery CD, or getting one of
these Linux distros onto its hard disk from another system.

Those aint the only two options now.

What are these Linux true image CD's?

They're basically a special purpose bootable linux CD.

Not gp linux tho, they always run TI.

Maybe we can install one of these things and have it complete its own installation from
its own hard drive?

Not sure what you mean there. The TI 'rescue' CD just
boots a sp version of linux that loads TI and allows you
to do whatever you need to do with images and cloning.

 

[Rod Speed]

Actually it does have a floppy drive, but there are no floppy disks
available. Besides even if we did get a floppy disk to boot from,
there's no guarantee that the drive even works any longer. The perils
of old technology.

The usual way to handle that is to have a floppy drive that
you use temporarily if the existing one doesnt work anymore.

Not a shred of rocket science required at all.

And you can certainly install almost any linux on the
hard drive with that hard drive in something else and
then just put it back in the Pav and it will work fine.

Thats one area where linux is a lot easier than the NT/2K/XP family.

Tho even very basic linuxes can have have real problems
with those old dinosaurs even when they have bootable CDs.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

That is just plain wrong.

Yeah, really Rod? You basically know exactly what I read?

And that too. If you cant boot say 98 and XP distribution
CDs on that system, they would say so in the FAQ.

There were no Win 98 or XP distribution CD's for that system. Came out
before 98, and way before XP.

I had a retail XP CD of my own that I tried on the system to no avail.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Sure, but its unlikely that if that was the case, it wouldnt
say so in the FAQ, because plenty would try to boot
distribution CDs of stuff like 98, XP, Ghost etc.

You assume that this PC was popular enough to try such advanced tricks
such as Ghost. Windows 98 was available on floppies, so if people needed
to go upto 98 on this machine, then likely they went with floppies. I
don't see most people keeping this model of PC long enough to try
putting XP on it. This is a Pentium 120MHz, after all.

Did you try resetting the bios completely as it documents ?

Yes, Rod.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

The usual way to handle that is to have a floppy drive that
you use temporarily if the existing one doesnt work anymore.

Hard to find these days. Cost way more than they're worth.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Yeah, really Rod? You basically know exactly what I read?

I know what the web site has.

There were no Win 98 or XP distribution CD's for that system.

Irrelevant to whether some might well choose to try to use one with it.

Came out before 98, and way before XP.

Irrelevant to whether some might well choose to try to use one with it.

I had a retail XP CD of my own that I tried on the system to no avail.

Then you should try resetting the bios completely,
as that web site document documents.

If that doesnt work, likely its developed a hardware
problem and you should try the boot manager instead.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

You assume that this PC was popular enough to try such advanced tricks such as Ghost.

Nope, assuming nothing, JUST that someone is likely to have
tried to get some bootable CD to boot on that and that HP is
likely to have documented the fact that it can only boot their
recovery CD if that is in fact the case, when they went out of
their way to write a decent document that covers all the likely
things that can happen to a CD in that system.

Windows 98 was available on floppies, so if people needed to go upto 98 on this machine,
then likely they went with floppies.

Very unlikely indeed given that it has a CD drive.

I don't see most people keeping this model of PC long enough to try putting XP on it.
This is a Pentium 120MHz, after all.

Sure, but someone is bound to have tried to put 98 on it and almost
certainly have tried to boot some other distribution CD on it too.

Yes, Rod.

Then you should have said so.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Hard to find these days.

Pigs arse they are.

Cost way more than they're worth.

Costs peanuts.

Thats life with those dinosaurs.

If you dont like that, dont try ****ing with dinosaurs.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Nope, assuming nothing, JUST that someone is likely to have
tried to get some bootable CD to boot on that and that HP is
likely to have documented the fact that it can only boot their
recovery CD if that is in fact the case, when they went out of
their way to write a decent document that covers all the likely
things that can happen to a CD in that system.

The only thing HP is likely to have suggested is to go to their website
a buy a new system.


Yousuf Khan