Can't boot Salix -Openbox-14.1 on AMD K6-2 machines

[junqueman]

Hi folks,

I'm pretty wet behind the ears with Linux but have been able to install and use Ubuntu 12.04 and 16.04 on a couple of boxes.

Right now I'm trying to get Salix installed on some HOH (Hopeless Old Hardware). I have a couple of old 366 MHz AMD K6-2 machines; one with 230 MB RAM and another with 360 MB. Yes, I know this is a very impractical venture but it's more of a learning project for me. If I get a marginally useful system out of the deal, well, that'll be icing on the cake.

I had previously successfully installed Ubuntu 6.06 on one of these machines, and Ubuntu 8.04 on the other. However, if possible I would like to install a Linux OS that is presently supported.

I did some poking around and saw Salix was recommended as a good choice for the AMD K6-2. I choose the Openbox distro as it was advertised as one of the lightest ones, downloaded the iso, and burned it to CD.

On both computers, all is well up to the "boot>" prompt. If I just press "Enter" (without entering any parameters) a get the message "aborted", which brings me back to the "boot>" prompt. I tried entering "huge.s" and I get:

Loading /Kernels/huge.s/bzImage. aborted.

If I enter hugesmp.s I get:

Loading /Kernels/hugesmp.s/bzImage. aborted.

Adding acpi=off or acpi=forced leads to the same results.

I also tried “nosmp” and received the message “Could not find kernel image: nosmp”

I confess I really have no idea what I'm doing here, so I tried to find a list of parameters that can be entered at the boot> prompt with some descriptions, without success.

Last week I used that same CD to build a virtual Salix machine in Virtualbox on my Mac and it worked like a charm.

Any suggestions? Explanations are also welcome, because, as I said, I'm trying to learn from this exercise.

Thanks in advance.

[laprjns]

I had previously successfully installed Ubuntu 6.06 on one of these machines, and Ubuntu 8.04 on the other. However, if possible I would like to install a Linux OS that is presently supported.

Both Ubuntu 6.06 and 8.04 used 2.6 kernels so I would guess that your going to need a Salix versions with the same kernel vintage, which would be Salix 13.0 or 13.1. You can download iso's from here, https://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/files/. Repositories are still available so you should be able to update the system and add packages, but as for support i guess you can ask in the forum, but not sure that there are many people still running 13.1

[junqueman]

Both Ubuntu 6.06 and 8.04 used 2.6 kernels so I would guess that your going to need a Salix versions with the same kernel vintage, which would be Salix 13.0 or 13.1.

Thanks! So from your response I surmise there's no command I can enter at the boot> prompt to get any farther on my hardware with 14.1 (?).

If that's the case, is there a particular desktop/distro for 13.1 you'd recommend for my hardware? I see iso files are available for fluxbox, lxde, xfce,and kde.

[gapan]

Can you try with the Fluxbox 14.1 iso? I can't test for another few days myself, but maybe the openbox iso has a bug with the huge.s kernel that went unnoticed until now. The boot option to try is indeed "huge.s". "nosmp" is the filename of the initrd, but you shouldn't use that, sorry for suggesting it.

[junqueman]

Can you try with the Fluxbox 14.1 iso? I can't test for another few days myself, but maybe the openbox iso has a bug with the huge.s kernel that went unnoticed until now. The boot option to try is indeed "huge.s". "nosmp" is the filename of the initrd, but you shouldn't use that, sorry for suggesting it.

Very good, George; I'll indeed download the Fluxbox 14.1 iso and try it out with the "huge.s" boot option. It'll have to wait until I can get to the store later this afternoon, though - I've (literally) burnt through my supply of blank CD's at this point.

[ChuangTzu]

Can you try with the Fluxbox 14.1 iso? I can't test for another few days myself, but maybe the openbox iso has a bug with the huge.s kernel that went unnoticed until now. The boot option to try is indeed "huge.s". "nosmp" is the filename of the initrd, but you shouldn't use that, sorry for suggesting it.

Very good, George; I'll indeed download the Fluxbox 14.1 iso and try it out with the "huge.s" boot option. It'll have to wait until I can get to the store later this afternoon, though - I've (literally) burnt through my supply of blank CD's at this point.

Been there done that, switch to CD-RW if you can, unless you like shiny coasters.

[junqueman]

Well, I came home with a new package of blank CDs, and tried booting salix-fluxbox-14.1. The results were the same as described in the original post starting this thread, including those obtained using "huge.s" at the boot prompt. Any more thoughts?

[gapan]

That should have worked. So something else must be wrong. Does this happen on both PCs?

[junqueman]

...and I just attempted salixlive-13.0.1. Slight progress: it starts to boot from the CD, and then it freezes on a blank screen with no further activity from the CD drive. I'm accumulating a nice sizable collection of large shiny coasters.

[junqueman]

That should have worked. So something else must be wrong. Does this happen on both PCs?

On 14.1 Openbox yes; same behavior on both machines. So far I've just tried 14.1 Fluxbox (as well as 13.0.1 live) on the peppier one (which is the one that presently runs Ubuntu 8.04 pretty well).