Subject: HELP!!! I can't boot and can't install linux. From: hjstein@sunrise.huji.ac.il (Harvey J. Stein) Date: 19 Apr 1993 14:39:41
I've been trying to get linux to boot on my 486sx at home. It's a
nice machine, except for an el-cheapo clone motherboard. I tried
using the SLS boot disk (downloaded from the tsx-11 mirror on
src.doc.ic.ac.uk in mid-February, SLS version 99pl2, according to the
readme file), and I tried using the boot99pl2 boot disk (also from the
tsx-11 mirror on src.doc.ic.ac.uk). Both give the same results. What
happens is that after getting the "Loading......" message with the
requisite 100 some odd dots, I get the message about SVGA detected,
hit <return> to select or hit <space> to continue. Now, one of two
things happens. Either I hit return, the screen goes into 50 line vga
mode and the machine reboots, or I hit space, and the machine reboots.
So, to check the files and my procedure, I slipped the SLS boot disk
into a Nixdorf 386sx up at school. It booted, I tried the root disk,
and the root disk worked too! Great! The boot99pl2 disk also worked
fine.
The only difference between booting at school and booting at home
(aside from the machines) is that the school machine has a 3.5"
floppy as drive A, and my machine as a 5.25" floppy as drive A, so I
had to use rawrite to make two sets of disks, one in each size.
So, in that I would like to use Linux, I'm posting this message in the
hopes that someone might have an idea for me to try. If that fails,
it will give an example of a system which won't run Linux, or at least
one which *I* can't get Linux running on.
So far, I've tried fiddling with bios settings, namely turning caching
on and off, turning adaptor rom shadowing on and off, and turning the
"Fast Gate A20 Option" on and off (whatever that is). I also tried
pulling all my cards except for the video card and the disk
controller, and unplugged everything from the disk controller card
except for the 5.25" A drive. However, I wasn't systematic enough to
try all possible combinations of bios settings with this minimal
hardware setup. I did read the FAQ (and all other documentation that
I found), though.
I've never had trouble with dos software, extended dos software
(demacs), windows 3.1, Turbo Pascal, Digitalk's Smalltalk/V for
Windows, ghostscript, etc, so I really don't know what to try next.
So, what could be the problem with my home machine? Why would it
click through and suddenly reboot itself? Are there any test suites
that I can run to see what the problem might be? Any things to try
out? Is the weird video card (see below) freaking out linux? Do I
have to trade in my motherboard? I hope not! All help will be
appreciated. I can't wait to rid my machine of that virus called
MSDOS. A company which tries to trademark the word "windows" is a
company that I'd like to do without!
Harvey Stein
Mathematics Department
hjstein@math.huji.ac.il
P.S. - Here's a sketch of the most minimal hardware setup that I
tried. If anyone needs more details, feel free to write me for them.
Motherboard:
GS3486 - A taiwanese motherboard with a 486SX running at 25mhz a
4meg bank of 3 chip 1meg SIMMS, a 4meg bank of 9 chip 1meg
SIMMS, a 64k cache on board. It's one of those boards that
supports both 386s & 486s. It has a 1990 AMI bios.
Monitor board:
Hercules Graphics Station Board with Intel 82706 VGA controller
chip and TI 34010 graphics processor with 1meg VRAM and 2meg DRAM
on board.
Monitor:
AcerView 35
Disk Controller:
Silicon Valley Computer IDE/BIOS/Floppy Controller (c) 1990. It
self configures to the IDE hard disk used when the disk type is set
to 1.
Keyboard:
key tronic MB 101 Professional Series.