Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

greenjeans · 2024-12-03 17:17:33

There is still documentation on the refracta website:
https://refracta.org/docs/readme.refracta2usb.txt
Have no idea how current it is . . .

As fsmithred once told me, it is for sure a huge swiss army knife of a program, but it can be confusing because it has so many options and things it can do, so there's a learning curve. I asked him at one point why it wasn't still around but can't remember what he said about that.

I have a couple different USB sticks I made with it, one just a standard liveUSB, one with persistence. I also have a stick that I did a conventional install one with a swap partition and all just for an experiment, but I think I just used Refracta-installer to do that one.

fsmithred · 2024-12-04 01:30:26

It is still around, but it's not in the repo. That would require some re-coding, and I'm afraid to mess with it.
This is only useful for live-isos, not for installer isos:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/refrac … b/download

mtbvfr · 2024-12-04 01:35:17

So guys what's the proper way to use wodim?

Should the command be the following?

wodim -eject dev=/dev/sr0 filename.iso

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2024-12-04 09:48:44

@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.

greenjeans · 2024-12-04 23:39:59

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)

Actually they seem cheaper than ever, its what I have used for 15 years, and the nice thing is I have a stack of isos going all the way back with everything I ever did, and every distro I ever tried and liked enough to keep, all on solid media that will never be corrupted as long as I don't have a house fire, lol.

Honestly on a machine as old as the OP's, that's a better choice.

But you're right, 512 mb is gonna be tough. Especially if he wants to try and run a browser. If he had just a gig at least, Vuu-do and a lot of others would work. I've run the old Vuu-do maximal in an old machine with 1 gig, and loaded the liveCD into ram and it worked great, but that was the old 1.07 with the old version of Palemoon.

ETA: What would work great, is Puppy linux from around 2010-2011 or so, before Barry quit for a while and the community bloated the living crap out of it.

Last edited by greenjeans (2024-12-04 23:42:52)

Babarosa · 2024-12-05 00:26:38

A few weeks ago I installed Devuan 5 i386 by using the netinstall iso on a system consisting of an AsRock K7VT4A Pro motherboard built 2005 with an Athlon XP 3000+ processor and 2 GB of RAM.
The system performs stable and is definitely usuable (using office programs, playing back music, digitizing movie DVDs, recording MIDI and audio, ...). Newly booted, it uses 392 MB of RAM. Web browsing although is a bit slow, opening more than one tab is not advisable. Watching DVD movies is not possible (at least with the momentarily used video card Radeon 9200).

As already written, 512 MB of RAM is tough.

Last edited by Babarosa (2024-12-05 00:31:58)

mtbvfr · 2024-12-05 11:04:54

I used xfburn to create the Live DVD and yes it worked. I tried both devuan-live and devuan-live (load to RAM) options. In both cases they were using 230MB after the Desktop was established.

I used the F12 key to go to the Boot Menu and selected the CD/DVD option. There was no indication of there being a bootable disc in the drive though.

During initialisation I saw 2 failed notices regarding apparmor. Is that critical?

Wi-Fi works but looks like the Antenna is a bit weak because it needs Line of Sight to establish connection and loses connection when walking out of the lounge room and into a hallway at which point there is blockage from a wall and the further down the hall the weaker is the pickup of the signal and once in another room whch adds another blockage from a wall the connection is lost.

According to 2 early pages of the User's Manual the Laptop can use 2 x PC4200, 200-pin, SO-DIMMs up to 2048MB each but according to a page towards the end, on Memory Expansion it mentions that only the following memory modules can be used.

256MB: PA3389U-1M25
512MB: PA3412U-1M51
1GB: PA3411U-1M1G

If 2 x 2GB modules can be used it would be pretty darn good.

I found the following:

https://www.memorystock.com/memory/Tosh … cFb0soMpin

Does anybody have other sources for second hand or NOS (New Old Stock) memory modules with economical prices especially in Oz?

A notebook drive in an External Enclosure with USB connection is recognised by thunar.

Thanks !!

steve_v · 2024-12-05 11:22:21

mtbvfr wrote:

I saw 2 failed notices regarding apparmor. Is that critical?

No. For some truly bizarre reason Debian (and by extension Devuan) enables apparmor by default, but doesn't ship a default configuration for it that actually works properly.
Ignore it, disable it, or fix whatever it's moaning about, your choice.

mtbvfr wrote:

According to 2 early pages of the User's Manual the Laptop can use 2 x PC4200, 200-pin, SO-DIMMs up to 2048MB each but according to a page towards the end, on Memory Expansion it mentions that only the following memory modules can be used.

The former will likely be the chipset limitation (which can be confirmed elsewhere, e.g. intel docs), the latter will be configurations the OEM tested with.
It's not particularly uncommon for a board to support, at least theoretically, DIMMs that weren't readily available when it was released.

As for getting some, I usually just go to ebay for stuff like this, and eat the (fairly reasonable for small items like memory) shipping (to NZ).

greenjeans · 2024-12-05 14:23:36

Yep, like Steve said, I have had pretty good luck finding older ram sticks on ebay.

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2024-12-06 06:58:59

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.

mtbvfr · 2024-12-07 21:36:06

Happy New Day Folks,

I've found some RAM on Ebay and I sent a message to the seller last night but still waiting for a reply.

Does anybody know what the BT at the end of the Item Title means?

"Laptop RAM Memory BT"

Next step is to see if a WD WD10SPSX 1TB Black 2.5" 7200RPM will work in this laptop. Along with 4GB of RAM, it should get a good boost in performance.

Thanks!

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2024-12-08 05:21:30

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.

mtbvfr · 2024-12-08 23:30:30

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn wrote:

use caution and patience with your experimentation

Thanks! for the great advice.

The Laptop will be used mostly as a Desktop whilst connected to the electricity supply.

I haven't been able to find any specific information regarding Phoenix BIOS 1.70 and which standards it supports.

The original drive is an Hitachi HTS541060G9SA00 (5400 RPM).

https://www.hdsentinel.com/storageinfo_ … 1060G9SA00

SATA 1 supports bandwidths up to 150 MB/s.

SATA 2.0, was introduced in April of 2004 and supports bandwidths up to 300 MB/s. So, maybe this Laptop could support SATA 2?

The following page suggests it could be possible.

https://www.gigabyte.com/lt/Motherboard … -S2-rev-10

According to Page 2 (19) of the Maintenance Manual:

The Laptop accommodates one 2.5-inch HDD with any of the following storage capacities:
• 40 GB (9.5 mm thick) SATA (5,400rpm)
• 60 GB (9.5 mm thick) SATA (5,400rpm/7200rpm)
• 80 GB (9.5 mm thick) SATA (5,400rpm/7200rpm)
• 100 GB (9.5 mm thick) SATA (5,400rpm/7200rpm)
• 120 GB (9.5 mm thick) SATA (5400rpm)

According to Page 7 (24) of the Maintenance Manual, it appears that this Laptop uses the Intel Calistoga 945GM Chipset as this particular Laptop has a dedicated Graphics chip.

On Page 8 (25) of the Maintenance Manual, it states the following regarding Memory:

Two expansion memory slots were provided, They can hold 256/512/1024MB expansion memory modules available as options to grow up to 4.0 GB.
• PC2-4200 /533/667MHz DDRII SDRAM supported
• 256/512/1024MB modules supported
− 256 MB (16M x 16 x 8P)
− 512 MB (32M x 16 x 8P)
− 1024 MB (64M x 8 x 16P)

However, 2 x 1024 MB modules would only make 2 GB. I saw similar information on Page 23 of the official Intel document located at the following link.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/p … asheet.pdf

It says:

System Memory Support
• Supports single-/dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM
• Maximum Memory supported: up to 4 GB at 400, 533 and 667 MHz
• 64-bit wide per channel
• Three Memory Channel Configurations supported:
— Single-Channel
— Dual-Channel Symmetric
— Dual-Channel Asymmetric
• One SO-DIMM connector per channel
• 256-Mb, 512-Mb and 1-Gb memory technologies supported
• Support for x8 and x16 devices

However, on page 17, Revision Number 002 (April 2006) indicates that support for 4-GB physical memory @ 667 MHz was included. Is that just a documentation revision? Did they forget to include 2 GB RAM modules perhaps?

Page 21 of the User's Manual (First Edition January 2006 - so I think this Laptop is actually 2006 vintage) states:

PC4200 256 MB, 512 MB, 1024 MB or 2048 MB memory modules an be installed in the two memory slots for a maximum of 4096 MB system memory.

It seems like some of the documentation may not have been properly updated in various documents?

I found on Ebay that it appears Toshiba did make a 2GB module whose naming convention matches that of the 1GB module Part Number that is in the User Manual (see post #32 above). The 2GB module has a Part Number of PA3411U-2M2G which is for the 533MHz frequency. There is also a PA3513U-1M2G PC2-5300 module for the 667MHz frequency. However, the RAM is actually unbranded.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/392835396777

These 2 pages appear to indicate that the Laptop can use 2 GB modules.

https://www.datamemorysystems.com/dms-m … a7-100.htm
https://www.datamemorysystems.com/dm50-190/

I'll contact this shop as buying from the USA should hopefully be more secure anf communicative. Still no reply from the Ebay seller in China.

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.

However, after reinstalling the original drive, when I boot the laptop, the BIOS splash screen is displayed but then warning beeps are heard with the text displayed on the screen that you can see in the following image.

https://icedrive.net/s/DjxGzFTawuxGkF2azxzy76A5BV39

I have to press the power button to turn off the Laptop.

Starting the Laptop again, if I press the F12 key when the BIOS splash screen is displayed, I can access the Boot Menu and select the HDD option and it then boots normally to the Win XP logon.

The day before yesterday, when I first removed the original drive and reinstalled it, the Laptop booted without problems afterwards.

Did installing the 2nd Hard Drive cause something to be changed in the BIOS? The 2nd hard drive was formatted for booting on UEFI systems but I did not attempt to boot from it.

Off topic: Have you been below Cheyenne Mtn? Are you familiar with what's going on on the following page?
https://earthquakes.ga.gov.au/

Last edited by mtbvfr (2024-12-08 23:37:49)

steve_v · 2024-12-09 04:51:42

Pretty much all of the above are questions specific to your particular machine, unless someone here has that exact model the best you will get is generic guesswork.

SATA 2.0, was introduced in April of 2004 and supports bandwidths up to 300 MB/s. So, maybe this Laptop could support SATA 2?

The ICH7 (best guess at the IO controller in this machine without one to play with) datasheet suggests SATA2 @ 300MB/s.
To determine current negotiated SATA link speed, boot linux and look in dmesg.
Even if the chipset is only SATA1, you'd still benefit from going to an SSD. Few mechanical laptop drives can really sustain 150MB/s, and none can beat an SSD when it comes to seek time. Any modern SATA drive should be backwards compatible with whatever the chipset supports.

higher capacity Hard Drive (WD 500GB Blue, 5400 RPM) was detected by the BIOS and could be recognised

AFAIK the only real limitation that applied in 2006 was 2TB. Most BIOS implementations from the time will actually work with larger drives, you just won't be able to address the rest of the space.

on page 17, Revision Number 002 (April 2006) indicates that support for 4-GB physical memory @ 667 MHz was included

DDR2 SODIMMs are cheap and widely compatible. Your best bet is to just buy some and try them.

Toshiba did make a 2GB module whose naming convention matches that of the 1GB module Part Number that is in the User Manual
...
There is also a PA3513U-1M2G PC2-5300 module for the 667MHz frequency. However, the RAM is actually unbranded.

There's usually no need to go after "branded" modules or those specifically mentioned in the manual, you just need supported technology, voltage, and (rarely an issue with desktop/laptop modules) buffering and number of ranks. Faster is always better, assuming 667MT modules aren't rare and at a premium price.

Still no reply from the Ebay seller in China.

Considering the item value, no ebay seller is going to know, care about, or make any effort to investigate compatibility with some random laptop from 2006.

Did installing the 2nd Hard Drive cause something to be changed in the BIOS?

At the least, it'll cause drive auto-detection to run and probably trigger an ESCD update. As for why it hangs on first-boot... Laptop BIOSes are weird and often buggy. Always have been, probably always will be.
Be thankful you don't have to deal with "system configuration changed, insert reference diskette" any more

Last edited by steve_v (2024-12-09 05:03:16)

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2024-12-09 06:35:47

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.

Last edited by stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn (2024-12-09 07:48:11)

mtbvfr · 2024-12-09 09:58:19

steve_v wrote:

As for why it hangs on first-boot

There was another black screen that appeared that I quickly selected the Load BIOS defaults option but didn't think quick enough to take a photo of it. It mentioned the Chipset by name (Calistoga).

Well I found the following page today and my first test was to try the "Using the BIOS system" option of the Third Fix and it worked.

https://mobilecomputerrepair.com/proble … solutions/

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn wrote:

edit: nothing here.

No problemo, gracias para la oferta.

I have 2 options I can try hear. Meanwhile I am hoping for a reply tomorrow from Data Memory Systems or Nemix Ram (www.nemixram.com) as per the email addresses given on the Data Memory Systems website.

mtbvfr · 2024-12-10 03:56:08

Happy New Day Folks,

I spoke too soon about solving the Intel Boot Agent problem.

I thought I would check it again this morning and it appeared again.

So, after disconnecting the Hard Drive and reconnecting it again, I got the same screen that I mentioned in Post #41 which can be viewed from the following link.

https://icedrive.net/s/jGG49ff4hkix7yXtDjFvWgRYSNaN

There is a Warning stating the following:

0251: System CMOS checksum bad - Default configuration used

Could it be that the CMOS (RTC) battery is coincidentally on the way out or could it be related to the removal and reinstallation of the Hard Drive?

So, I disconnected and reinstalled the Hard Drive again and after following the "Fourth Fix: Reset Power" of the following page I managed to get the Laptop starting again but the Intel Boot Agent problem still arises. If I enact the F12 Boot Menu option when the BIOS Splash Screen displays and select the HDD option the Laptop still boots Windows XP.

I'm starting to look into the CMOS checksum problem.

mtbvfr · 2024-12-10 09:12:11

Well the CMOS problem hasn't reoccurred. I also can't find online where the battery resides on the Motherboard.

By Divine assistance I happened to press the F1 key when the Splash screen appeared which stopped the beeping when the Intel Boot Agent screen, that I previously advised of, appeared.

I waited a while and the following text appeared:

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent.

After that appears the Laptop boots to the Windows XP Login screen.

I click on the Turn off the Computer button and the Laptop starts beeping again. I can click on the Restart or Shut Down buttons and the Laptop restarts or shuts down.

The following page suggests that PXE-E61 "could be caused by a failing hard drive".

https://www.lifewire.com/pxe-e61-media- … re-4156811

Would using GParted from the Live DVD by using the Test feature on the drive's partitions be the same as using "chkdsk /f" in a Windows environment?

Could I put the Hard Drive in an enclosure and boot to Windows with the Dell Laptop I have and use "chkdsk /f" from there on the Toshiba's Hard Drive?

steve_v · 2024-12-10 10:25:24

can't find online where the battery resides on the Motherboard.

In laptops it's often remote. Follow the wires to the battery wrapped in shrink-sleeve stuffed in some random corner of the chassis.
There's a small chance this could have an integral battery (e.g. some variant of the infamous Dallas RTC chip), but I doubt it. Either way, it's likely dead by now. Open the machine up and have a look, it's probably obvious.

"could be caused by a failing hard drive"

Or a dodgy connection, as the error message indicates. Oxidation and/or general crud in SATA connectors can lead to all manner of fun.

Would using GParted from the Live DVD by using the Test feature on the drive's partitions be the same as using "chkdsk /f" in a Windows environment?

Likely close enough, assuming that the live media has ntfs and/or fat (you don't say what filesystem you're running) fsck tools.
That said, a filesystem check probably isn't what you want for suspected hardware problems anyway. Pull the SMART diagnostics from the drive, then run a long (media read) self-test or badblocks. See 'man smartctl' and 'man badblocks' respectively. Both are considerably slower and more thorough than chkdsk.

Could I put the Hard Drive in an enclosure and boot to Windows with the Dell Laptop I have and use "chkdsk /f" from there on the Toshiba's Hard Drive?

Probably. Really not sure why we're talking about Windoze and Windoze filesystem tools to begin with though.

Aside, also really not sure why all the buggering about with an old mechanical hard drive. It'll be miserably slow compared to even the cheapest SSD, and considering its age there's a very good chance it's just plain dodgy.

I suggest you forget about the original drive and software (i.e. image the drive if there's stuff you want on it, then bin it), slap some cheap second-hand RAM and a bargain-basement SATA SSD in, then move on to getting a real OS installed.
The box is not worth the time and effort trying to source "officially supported" or branded components, and messing with 20 year old hard drives is a mugs game unless you're restoring rare vintage hardware... which this is not.

Last edited by steve_v (2024-12-10 10:45:14)

mtbvfr · 2024-12-10 10:44:34

steve_v wrote:

Aside, also really not sure why all the buggering about

I just want to make sure there's nothing fundamental at a lower level that could be causing the problem.

If, after using chkdsk /F on the drive, the Intel Boot Agent problem has gone, then, it indicates the possibility that maybe I buggered something up with it when removing and reinstalling it.

Then I will feel more comfortable about getting a new drive and RAM for it.

mtbvfr · 2024-12-17 00:03:00

Hi Folks,

steve_v wrote:

Pull the SMART diagnostics from the drive

I used Gnome Disks to check the S.M.A.R.T. data and all Assessments were OK.

I used the Check option with GParted which produced the following results - OK again.

Partition Type     Start     End       Flags       Partition Name File System Label       Mount Point
/dev/sda1 Primary  63        109675754 boot                       ntfs        S3A2418D002
/dev/sda2 Primary  109675755 117210239 hidden, lba                fat32       HDDRECOVERY

========================================
Check and repair file system (ntfs) on /dev/sda1  00:01:06    ( SUCCESS )
     	
calibrate /dev/sda1  00:00:06    ( SUCCESS )
     	
path: /dev/sda1 (partition)
start: 63
end: 109675754
size: 109675692 (52.30 GiB)
check file system on /dev/sda1 for errors and (if possible) fix them  00:00:35    ( SUCCESS )
     	
ntfsresize -i -f -v '/dev/sda1'  00:00:29    ( SUCCESS )
     	
ntfsresize v2022.10.3 (libntfs-3g)
Device name : /dev/sda1
NTFS volume version: 3.1
Cluster size : 4096 bytes
Current volume size: 56153952768 bytes (56154 MB)
Current device size: 56153954304 bytes (56154 MB)
Checking for bad sectors ...
Checking filesystem consistency ...
100.00 percent completed
Accounting clusters ...
Space in use : 13704 MB (24.4%)
Collecting resizing constraints ...
Estimating smallest shrunken size supported ...
File feature Last used at By inode
Multi-Record : 34135 MB 24633
$MFTMirr : 28077 MB 1
Compressed : 34148 MB 47537
Sparse : 1816 MB 101064
Ordinary : 33531 MB 6011
You might resize at 13703069696 bytes or 13704 MB (freeing 42450 MB).
Please make a test run using both the -n and -s options before real resizing!
grow file system to fill the partition  00:00:25    ( SUCCESS )
     	
run simulation  00:00:05    ( SUCCESS )
     	
ntfsresize --force --force --no-action '/dev/sda1'  00:00:05    ( SUCCESS )
     	
ntfsresize v2022.10.3 (libntfs-3g)
Device name : /dev/sda1
NTFS volume version: 3.1
Cluster size : 4096 bytes
Current volume size: 56153952768 bytes (56154 MB)
Current device size: 56153954304 bytes (56154 MB)
New volume size : 56153952768 bytes (56154 MB)
Nothing to do: NTFS volume size is already OK.
real resize  00:00:18    ( SUCCESS )
     	
ntfsresize --force --force '/dev/sda1'  00:00:18    ( SUCCESS )
     	
ntfsresize v2022.10.3 (libntfs-3g)
Device name : /dev/sda1
NTFS volume version: 3.1
Cluster size : 4096 bytes
Current volume size: 56153952768 bytes (56154 MB)
Current device size: 56153954304 bytes (56154 MB)
New volume size : 56153952768 bytes (56154 MB)
Nothing to do: NTFS volume size is already OK.

Still getting the Intel Boot Agent message.

Is it possible that even in the era that this Laptop is from that Laptop Makers and Windows were screwing around with BIOS in order to lock people into their cage of control?

So, I've ordered RAM a couple of days ago from the Ebay seller in China who must have been a bit busy at the time I sent my first message. Their English is pretty good. The package is already on its way.

I have a 500GB Hard Drive with Windows 10 that came with the Lenovo Laptop I briefly mentioned before. I am going to use that for the Toshiba.

It was formatted with an msdos Partition Table as follows.

Disk /dev/sdd: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: ASMT1053
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x1baf4c42

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdd1  *         2048   1187839   1185792   579M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdd2         1187840 767057919 765870080 365.2G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdd3       767057920 976773119 209715200   100G 83 Linux

My proposed partition scheme will be as follows.

/dev/sda1   30GB    Devuan 5    ext4
/dev/sda2   30GB    MX Linux    ext4
/dev/sda3   10GB    SWAP        linux-swap
/dev/sda4   Remaining Space     ext4
            for User files.

The Toshiba Laptop is not mine. Is 30GB sufficient for a non-power user for Devuan 5 and MX Linux?

Is 10GB too much for SWAP for 4GB of RAM?

I am rusty with this stuff. After deleting the current partitions and creating the new ones is the Boot flag also removed and will it be recreated by the Install process?

Are there any gotchas I need to know about?

Thanks!!

greenjeans · 2024-12-17 01:09:49

@mtbvfr:
1. 30 gigs should be sufficient unless the user wants to put 40 gigs of video on that partition.
2. In practice I haven't had to use swap in years, but in general it doesn't need to be any bigger than the size of RAM installed. 4 gigs is plenty.
3. I usually use the last partition (sda4) for swap.
4. I use legacy BIOS (grub-pc) non-efi on my machines, and currently I don't need to add the boot flag for any of the partitions. For making a liveUSB it required it, but for a regular installed system using MBR/legacy BIOS/Grub-pc I haven't had to add the boot flag to the main partition in forever. Not using it now on the very system i'm posting from (Devuan 5 daedalus).

mtbvfr · 2024-12-17 03:33:44

greenjeans wrote:

I usually use the last partition (sda4) for swap.

Is there a technical/speed advantage or disadvantage to having SWAP at the end of the drive?

Does having SWAP at the end make it easier to reconfigure the other partitions when necessary?

Videos would go on the partition for User Files.

Thanks!!

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2024-12-17 08:17:32

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.

kapqa · 2024-12-17 09:13:59

you can use older version of rufus on XP to create the USB,
but it would probably complain that linux uses newer bootfile or something and tries to download it and could fail doing that.

best bet on older systems is to burn ISO to CD/DVD and boot from that, just my experience.
<just had mayor problems booting off Ventoy on older AMD II system. booting of DVD no problemo.

on Linux normally i use mkusb to create bootable linux USB, found it more realiable than Unetbootin

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb … -to-debian

Last edited by kapqa (2024-12-17 09:15:54)

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#26 2024-12-03 17:17:33

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#27 2024-12-04 01:30:26

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#28 2024-12-04 01:35:17

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#29 2024-12-04 09:48:44

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#30 2024-12-04 23:39:59

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#31 2024-12-05 00:26:38

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#32 2024-12-05 11:04:54

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#33 2024-12-05 11:22:21

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#34 2024-12-05 14:23:36

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#35 2024-12-06 06:58:59

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#36 2024-12-07 21:36:06

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#37 2024-12-08 05:21:30

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#38 2024-12-08 23:30:30

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#39 2024-12-09 04:51:42

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#40 2024-12-09 06:35:47

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#41 2024-12-09 09:58:19

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#42 2024-12-10 03:56:08

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#43 2024-12-10 09:12:11

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#44 2024-12-10 10:25:24

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#45 2024-12-10 10:44:34

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#46 2024-12-17 00:03:00

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#47 2024-12-17 01:09:49

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#48 2024-12-17 03:33:44

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#49 2024-12-17 08:17:32

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

#50 2024-12-17 09:13:59

Re: Devuan 5 not Booting on 2005 Toshiba Tecra A7 Intel Centrino Duo

Board footer