On Friday 27 July 2001 06:15 pm, you wrote:
>
> A second question is for myself. I have an older Panasonic CF-41 mklll
> laptop. Its a P120 with 32M ram and a nonbootable cdrom. I tried various
> methods of installs and various distros. Finally, I bought a 3.5'' to 2.5"
> ide adapter. I moved the hard drive to another computer and installed
> Mandrake 8.
I am no expert but I do know you can not do this.
Each computer comes with a particular set of machine code that is unique to
that model and manufacture of computer. Portions of this machine code tell
the computer how to handle memory, memory addressing and internal
configuration of the computer. On top of this code is added a second layer
called the BIOS or basic instruction set. This tell the computer how to
handle I/O devices, screen drivers, modems, and other second level apparatus.
There are a number of different bioas that can be ran on any computer but you
have to be very much a assembly language programmer to do such. Normally
speaking one only uses the BIOS supplied by the manufacture for a particular
motherboard. The significance for this discussion is that the bios takes the
machine code to a higher level. Unfortunately this level is not standard
meaning that there are a number of different commands utilized to perform any
single function and that these commands are unique to each type of computer.
On top of this you add the operating system. The operating system converts
the second level commands into a common standard set of commands. For example
you issue a print command. Now the print command is standard through all
computers running the same operating system. This print command then converts
this into lower level commands that are unique to that particular hardware.
Point is if you install an operating system on one type of computer you can
not take that HD to a different set of hardware because the bios and assembly
language will be different.
> After I moved it back, it finally booted up (no kernal panic).
> However, it fails to make it into the GUI and reverts back to a command
> line. I've done a few config type things to get the display and sound to
> the correct. Obviously, it set itself up for the hardware that was in the
> computer in which it was installed. It still seems to be looking for the
> wrong chipset. Any ideas?
I haven't done this but you might try installing Toms or some other small
distribution on the hard drive that will allow you to access the HD. You can
install Toms from a floppy. Once you do that you should be able to install
additional Linux components. Personally I do not think you will be able to
place a modern GUI on a machine with that little ram. If you did manage
installation then I doubt that it would prove to be effective.
> thanks Jim
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