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Recommended Linux version

New MessageRecommended Linux version (modified 0 times) gramster
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Hi all

I have XP running great on my v5's, but I've only been able to get FreeBSD to work with pre-v5's. So I thought I'd try installing Linux instead. So far I've tried RH8, but it reboots almost immediately after I hit enter on th Grub menu. What versions of Linux will run on a v5 in their vanilla configurations, and also support USB Ethernet? I thought about trying Mandrake 7.1 but it would be good to hear from others first.

03-03-2003 23:39:33

New MessageRE:Recommended Linux version (modified 0 times) Adrenolin
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Hey gramster,
I've installed Debian 3.0 on 3 i-openers now and they work fine. Using an IDE laptop adapter I install the laptop hard drive in my normal PC, install Debian from CD and then recompile the latest kernel. Move the drive into the i-opener, turn it on and it runs fine. Most linux users will want to recompile a newer/latest kernel anyways. Its also fairly simple and I'd recommend it. Here is a quick run down of what I do..

Install Debian 3.0 then download and copy linux-2.4.18.tar.gz (this is the kernal I last used) to /usr/src/.

Run 'tar zxvf linux-2.4.18.tar.gz' to extract archive giving you a linux-2.4.18 directory.
Create a link called linux which points to the linux-2.4.18 dir. This is a personal thing I do and is not required but many others will also do this.

Enter the 'linux' directory and do the following...

make config or make menuconfig or make xconfig (I use 'make menuconfig' from console not from KDE or any other window manager)
make dep ; make clean
make zImage or make bzImage (I use 'make bzImage' but the choice is yours. The bzImage in simply compressed more.)
make modules (I tend to not use modules unless required but its a preferance. I still run this though out of habit.)
make modules_install

# backup old kernel
mv /boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage_20030304_01
cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot
link /vmlinuz to /boot/bzImage
link /vmlinuz2 to /boot/bzImage_20030304_01
mv /boot/System.map-x.x.x /boot/System.map-x.x.x_20030304_01 (x.x.x is the kernel version)
cp /usr/src/linux/System.map /boot/System.map-x.x.x (again... x.x.x is the kernel version)
Modify lilo.conf to provide another tag allowing you to boot from the new kernel but also the old one.
Run 'lilo'
Reboot

I think thats pretty much what I do. There are other ways and some people feel strongly that on a Debian system you should use the Debian packages which will build a kernel package. I follow the above guide and it always works fine. Let me know if you have any questions. Have fun!

Adrenolin
I-Opener Information and Hacking!!
03-04-2003 17:48:54

New MessageRE:Recommended Linux version (modified 0 times) redwood
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Adrenolin, Thanks for the detailed install description! I"m only now learning a bit of linux, and, hope I can get it up on my Iopeners some day.. one question... I have small drives, could you tell me if this install of yours would work on just over a 1 gig drive?? thanks.. oh, it would be nice, as people are successful using this, to post, thanks!
03-04-2003 18:40:57

New MessageRE:Recommended Linux version (modified 0 times) gramster
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Hi Adrenolin

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll probably try Mandrake first anyway, as I downloaded the iso files last night.

Are any of your iOpeners v5's? I only seem to have problems with them; I have a v1 and a v3b/4a both run FreeBSD 4.7 out of the box (installed from CD on my laptop, then moved drive to iOpener, no kernel reconfig needed), but no luck on v5's. Seems to be an IDE IO mode issue (I get messages about UDMA66 not being supported, switching to UDMA33, then read timeouts, then kernel panics - none of which happen on the v1 and v3/4).

If your units are all non-v5 then perhaps you would have problems on a v5 too...

03-04-2003 23:50:52

New MessageRE:Recommended Linux version (modified 0 times) Adrenolin
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redwood,
There shouldn't be any problems installing to a 1gig hard drive although keep in mind here that this also depends on what you install. The following shows disk space after a fairly standard install with KDE as the desktop manager. Notice that /usr is quite large. This could be reduced a lot as much of whats there is not really needed, just extra crap that I didn't bother sorting through since I had the extra space. Also, 254MB of that is the kernel source in /usr/src which could also be removed. Again, you shouldn't have any problems just weed out the crap you dont need.


mobile1:~# df -h

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/hda3              93M   31M   57M  35% /

/dev/hda6             465M  151M  289M  35% /var

/dev/hda7             1.1G  852M  217M  80% /usr

/dev/hda8             1.2G   73M  1.0G   7% /home

gramster,
I have a number of V5s and also a V4b which all run fine running Debian 3.0 and kernel 2.4.20 on the unit beside me. I have not had any IDE I/O or kernel panics using either.

Adrenolin
I-Opener Information and Hacking!!
03-05-2003 11:11:58

New MessageRE:Recommended Linux version (modified 0 times) gramster
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Yeah, it must be version related. because my v5's have Midori on the SanDisk and that works fine. I'm going to try Mandrake 7.1 now and I'll report back.
03-05-2003 23:42:21

New MessageRE:Recommended Linux version (modified 0 times) FIRESTORM_v1
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I have tried to load RH7.3 with the same results, reboot after the Grub screen

what is it with the kernel that specifically makes it reboot like that? Does it have something to do with the way the kernel was compiled when <insert distro here> made the kernel RPM or is it because of the processor mods or what?

Pleasse let me know because I am curious as well.


Thank you

06-06-2003 11:30:41

New MessageRE:Recommended Linux version (modified 0 times) maidtina
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I'm having the same problem with suse 8.2. The problem is my USB ethernet is pegasus II based and i need a 2.4.20 kernel to support it, its a V1 with a k62 and the original 32meg ram. So far i'm experimenting with a few others but i'm about to mount my ethernet adapter internally so i really need to get this working first. I really have had enough of windows 98 on it...
06-12-2003 21:54:10

New MessageRE:Recommended Linux version (modified 0 times) Scrappy
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I've got a v4.5 (4b?) that booted fine with Slack 7 and a few others that were based on 2.0.x kernels. Switched to a 2.4 kernel for the USB ethernet support. Tried both Slack 9 and RH ; both gave a kernel panic due to the Sandisk so I had to add a boot option from this list to tell the kernel to not probe hdb for now. That one was easy, thanks to this forum! On another box, however I was not so lucky. Not an iopener, but the technique might help. I was trying to run a Mylex RAID SCSI controller on a SMB box -dual P3-866mhz's. Long story short, the Linux driver for the Mylex is faulty in that situation and the screen goes black on boot. Pertinent is that after the boot fails, you take the drive out, transfer back to a PC (using the 3.5"-2.5" adapter that you used to load Linux initially) and read the bootlog files; one of them will tell you either what failed last time or what the last successful step was.
07-13-2003 22:27:47

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