grant@torque.net
Thu, 25 Mar 1999 06:49:03 -0500 (EST)
> I want to install RedHat (well, any Linux distribution really!) onto a
> Gateway Colorbook laptop (20Mb memory, 340Mb disk) which has a
> MicroSolutions Backpack CDROM connected via the parallel port.
>
> I can boot off the RedHat boot disk, select "other" (ie. not SCSI) CDROM
> drive, tell it to autodetect the backpack drive, at which point the
> CDROM light comes on and all seems well. However, I get a register dump
> on screen after a few seconds (sorry, can post all that here if it
> helps; seem to remember there was mention of a timeout in there
> somewhere)
You don't say what version of RedHat you are using and whether you
are using the official boot disk, or one of mine ...
If you are installing 5.2, try getting the updated boot disk from
http://www.torque.net/parport/rhs.html
> So:
> a) is it 'safe' to autodetect this drive? Or should I
> specify manual parameters (in which case, what?)
You can specify "verbose=1" to get more detailed output on the
ALT-F4 screen.
> b) I pulled the case off the backpack drive (out of curiousity;
> the drive's on loan and I wondered if I could clone the interface
> and build my own using a spare 4x drive) and there's an
> empty socket on the interface board that could be for buffer
> memory - could the lack of such memory and Linux trying to
> drive the CDROM too hard be causing the problem?
Nope. More likely just an old (read buggy) driver ...
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Grant R. Guenther grant@torque.net
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Sun 28 Mar 1999 - 17:07:35 EST