You are not logged in.
see this webpage for information on the older v4 memtest stand-alone that should work on your unit.
https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm
sidenote: if you have _any_ other distro discs(installer and/or live) that have memtest in the boot menu those should work.
ditto, what they said...enshittification indeed
you may be having hardware issues. if the internal drive is going bad you may only have a limited number of power-ups left before it becomes unrecoverable(by the time you read this it may already be too late). only you can decide on any continued experimentation based on your specific situation. hopefully you have backup(s). good luck and keep us posted on your progress!
what happens when you just boot the machine with the "desktop-live" version(s) offered at:
https://www.devuan.org/get-devuan
desktop-live: Explore the default Xfce desktop before installing. Then install easily and quickly from the live session using the refractainstaller. Firmware is installed but can easily be removed.
along with the webpage LinuxMan references, please review this one also:
remember to create and save all the usual documents/files/outputs/etc while still on PeppermintOS so that you can compare when you go back to investigating your previous issues with Devuan. dmesg and Xorg.log and such. good luck and keep us posted.
huge thanks for the clarification and update!
good luck with the ram and happy holidays whatever/whichever is your pleasure.
what they said...and Welcome to the Forum!
went back and reread the entire thread. have an additional question for clarification. in reply number thirty-eight(38) you relate:
Yesterday morning, for the second time, I removed the original Hard Drive (with Windows XP on it) to check that a more modern and higher capacity Hard Drive (WD 500GB Blue, 5400 RPM) was detected by the BIOS and could be recognised and accessed with Thunar using the Devuan 5 Live DVD. That was successful.
so that quote seems to imply that your original thread topic "Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo" is no longer accurate? what got me thinking and then rereading was wondering exactly what your optical drive could and/or couldn't do/read/write and i recalled your mention of a blank dvd and wondered if the optical drive could even do dvd media.
so...again, i rereference the same quote where you describe
was detected by the BIOS and could be recognised and accessed with Thunar using the Devuan 5 Live DVD. That was successful.
and so you are using Thunar via the Devuan 5 Live DVD on the 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo?
humbly request clarification please. thanks.
ps/fyi: am also dealing with inconsistent and problematic bios and am leaning towards firmware level corruption in this particular case since there was quite a bit of unofficial bios firmware "modding" within the gaming community surrounding this particular device(back when the unit was new, but not anymore). definitely frustrating and in some cases unfixable(at least without a known-good-firmware written directly to the chip which normally requires extensive disassembly)
nevertheless, when it stops being fun...stop. imho. ymmv.
@pcalvert, see this thread:
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=6484
and specifically this post by ralph.ronnquist:
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=48861#p48861
for more information on the _full_link_displayed_preferred_procedure_
it is really quite simple once you get used to it
(also, fortunately the thread is found via search easily since there are not many topic texts containing "hyperbola")
for clarification, does your mention of "goat" reference this user?
https://dev1galaxy.org/search.php?action=show_user_posts&user_id=6999
regardless, comment wherever you feel is most appropriate for your subject(s)/topic(s)
much the same as with wikipedia, it is best to provide sufficient documentation/information/references so that others may confirm or perhaps arrive at different hypotheses.
would agree with steve_v and post number fortyfour.
believe your booting issues are a result of multiple issues.
cmos battery(whichever type internally) is depleted. some machines will not even boot without proper/sufficient cmos voltage.
here is a link that should show similar cmos battery installation/location(s) but remember every machine is different location-wise.
https://www.amazon.com/BZBYCZH-Battery-Compatible-Toshiba-A7-S712/dp/B0B51NBHDR/
your description of boot messages beginning with "PXE" seem to indicate that the bios is set to check for pxe-booting(most bios have settings to turn pxe-booting off but with a depleted cmos battery any bios settings you change will be lost when the machine is off_and_disconnected_from_mains_electricity)
your swap question has several answers. if you are dual-booting with windows you will put it wherever you made space for the non-windows stuff. if you are NOT dual-booting then for spinning rust it is best to have the swap at the beginning(first partition for non-eufi machines or second partition for eufi machines, iirc) and as long as you have plenty of hdd space stay with the "ram times 2" calculation for simplicity and as a "rule_of_thumb"
hopefully this makes sense and is helpful in some fashion. good luck and continue to keep us posted on your progress.
at ease compadres, smokem if ya gots em :rollafatone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Masters_(cigar)
moar
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Smoke+%27em+if+you+got+%27em
======================
Note that this response is not only incredibly stupid but off-topic and way out-of-line. stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn . . . you can do better than this.
a brief story in your local broadsheet or even something you print out and put on corkboards in the marketplaces should help in knocking the dust off of residents retired equipment and you should end up with more than you can put to use right away. if you have trouble sourcing enough locally give the forum a shout.
i'll see if i have any ram that might work. if i do then i'll check on a package to your side of the blue marble. i always wanted to ship something to the land of Oz...ha!
*****************************************************************************
edit: nothing here.
if you live anywhere remotely populated there will probably be someone who has things you might want/need that they just haven't gotten around to throwing out yet. you might even come across better equipment and some new friends in the process.
Hey Software Freedom Conservancy, Repairability Isn't Enough!
keywords: OpenWrt, repairability, Richard Stallman, proprietary
mostly for the convenience of future thread visitors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Rapid_Storage_Technology
the very first question is...wait for it...you knew it was coming...
you have a tried and true, bullet-proof method to completely recover this machine to its original state? yes?(asking for a friend)
from the link provided in the OP:
Build tools preparation
1) on Devuan (Debian without SystemD):
sudo apt-get install bison coreutils curl flex gcc g++ libncurses-dev libnss3-dev libssl-dev m4 make p7zip-full patch pkg-config unzip wget xxd zlib1g-dev git
you can always email Mike Banon to confirm that a clean fresh install of Devuan was used for this project(and that no "snaps" were present and/or used/utilized in this endeavour).
********************************************************************
edited to add a link to a possibly related reddit(6 years old though):
the BT on the description/title may denote this company:
https://www.businessdirect.bt.com/about-us/
use caution and patience with your experimentation regarding upgrades/updates to your equipment. you may end up purchasing several sticks of ram before you figure out exactly what works for your machine. only put one stick in at a time and if it works then run memtest on that one stick for at least one complete test cycle.
unless you are getting parts either free or very inexpensively(perferrably locally sourced naturally) then i would recommend purchasing the ram first and getting it working before additional purchases of anything else.
with respect to spinning platters, what was the speed of the original internal hdd? many laptops came with slower rpm for two reasons, one being there was no need to go faster than the board could transfer data and two, the theory was a 4200rpm drive would make the battery last longer. typically any solid-state storage solution will give much better performance and battery longevity than spinning platters(at any speed 4200/5400/7200/10000).
good luck and keep us posted please.
searching DDG shows multiple results using "raspberry pi 4 usb booting"(quotation marks only added for forum clarity, not used for the search)
what does "who -a" display?
while you are experimenting with ram you can also consider the possibility of some sort of solid-state internal storage to replace the spinning rust. if you don't care about portability then even more options are viable. wireless strength was hit and miss in those days so, again, if it doesn't need to be portable a hard line is much preferred. great to hear you are having some success in your endeavours.
it has been said many times before but bears repeating, debian is a lost cause and it is only a matter of time before it becomes more effort than it is worth to continue to use it as a base. for those who refuse to use alphabet/apple/microsoft/redhat(directly at least...yes everyone has their fingers in everyone else's pies), where to go/look/turn? [tongue_in_cheek_but_not_totally_in_jest] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KolibriOS [/tongue_in_cheek_but_not_totally_in_jest]
@mtbvfr
I was using Devuan 5 on a Dell Latitude 6530 to attempt to write to the DVD.
grabbed a lenovo y580 laptop which has the same era internals as your dell latitude e6530 and booted daedalus liveusb. in the accessories section of the menu you should find Xfburn. it has a "Burn Image" function that writes .ISO to CDs and DVDs properly.
that being said, your 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo machine with 512MB of ram will not perform enjoyably and/or satisfactorily with the vast majority of current *nix/bsd/etc. distributions. if the machine won't boot from usb media and you don't want to burn through a bunch of cd/dvd disks(harder to find and more expensive these days), probably the best course of action is to learn how to physically remove the hard drive and use a usb adapter to properly format, partition, and install some lightweight stuff so you can both achieve some success and gain some valuable experience, insight, and troubleshooting acumen.
current lightweight offerings include distros like FreeDOS, Puppy Linux, Slitaz, Tiny Core Linux, and the like.
hopefully this helps. keep us posted on your progress.