Compaq Presario 5522

[Caluser2000]

I remember random core dump with show an old stye bomb with a lit fuse with Xs for eyes and the mouth with its tongue hanging out.

Back in 2000 I was browsing the local magazine shelves and the July edition of Australian Personal Computer caught myi
interest. It contained 3 Cds one had internet/software utilities, another with IBM OS/2 Warp version 4, with the last Cd containing Red Hat 6.2. Having an interest(hobby) in computer with a passion for computer operating system I immediately grabbed it ,took to the counter and handed over my NZ pesos to purchase the mag. Grinning from ear to ear I rushed to try the OSs out. With BeOS personnal edition installed and running you could actually install to a seperate hdd, put that hdd as the main boot OS on another computer.Of course with Os/2 Warp v4 and Red Hat you could just install them to a fresh system to try them out.

The Cds come with a small booklet showing how to install them.I wasn't interested in the interrnet programs Cd so that got buffed two decades ago......

 

[Caluser2000]

Let us not for get the Ramen worm that affected Re Hat Linux versions 6.2 and 7.0.

 

[Caluser2000]

The Turbo Linux installation didn't go well. On the first install after the first reboot I was presented with the oh so familiar black screen and the two letters LO. Just in case the boot loader LILO was playing up I hard restarted the system. Bugger same thing. Just to rule out the TuboLinux installation routine was at fault I installed Red Hat 6.0. To see what it that will install over TurboLinux and sort the problem out. Nope!.
It was obvious the the Master Boot record in that hdd.

Turned the system off, pulled problematic hdd out. The grabbed 5.25" Bigfoot hdd with Xandro 3 preinstalled on it by my AMDK6-2 400 testing box, connected it up too the Compaq, push the power button and see what happened. I booted up the Xandros 3 boot menu just fine . Then I selected option two, which use "Safe Mode" ie load with the video set to pain old VGA old press enter to see what would happen as it attempted to load up the the KDE 3.0 desktop as I installed it on the other system with the K6 -2 400 cpu. I grabbed the hdd with the mbr issue and took it inside.

Once inside I hooked up the 8gig drive to the K6-2 400 system fired it up. then put the first disk of the MS Dos 6.22 installation disk set. Went in to the Bios and set the first to boot the 1.4meg fdd. Save the new setting and exited the bios and it did a warm reboot which booted of 1.44meg disk to the start of the MS Dos 6.22. After it showed up on the monitor I pressed the F3 key twice thus dropping out to the dos prompt. Ran fdisk then ran fdisk/mdr first then fire disk up removed the two non-dos partitions. exited fdisk back to the dos prompt ran fdisk ago then created the largest primary dos partition I could. This was 2gig as that is the maximum size Dos will do on the 8gig drive. Saved and exited fdisk. At the Dos prompt I typed format C:. Once the 2gig primary Dos partiton format routine was completed sI typed sys C: to copy the MS Dos 6.22 system files to the 2gig Dos primary partition on 8gig hdd to allow the hdd to boot. Pulled the floppy disk out of the fdd and gave the system the three figure salute(ctl-alt-del).
It booted straight to familiar Dos prompt. I smiled

Grab the Xandros 2.0 installation CD placed that in the CD dive, rebooted, went in the bios and set the first boot device then saved and exited the bios. The system reboot loaded up the Xandros 2.0 installation process. I chose the Express option instead of the Custom one and tabbed to the Next button.The installation routine picked up the Dos partition and ask me if I wanted to keep. I selected no and use the whole disk for the install. set the host name. root password, and unprivileged user details tabbed to the Next button and it started up the installation routine and it went on its merry way automatically partitioning then forming the partitions, setting up the swap partition and then copying the Xandos 2.0. I set and watched a bit of telly.

Around half an hour later I was happy to see the install had finished and been asked to remove the CD then press the enter key I complied. The system reboot to the Xandros 2.0 boot option menu, selected option 1normal boot up, and the system loaded up and present me with the login prompt.
Logged in as unprivileged user, The Xandros 2.0 custom KDE 3 desktop came along with the first run wizard. Did what I need to do in the wizard and closed it. Now ready to rock and roll in Xandros 2 ,0.

Forgive if I have forgotten a step. I'm old and its just after 05:00hrs and I am going back to bed.

To be continued................

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

 

[Caluser2000]

Good morning all. That was quite a nice nap I had. You see I suffer from insomnia and some times I don't get any sleep to two or days before the body shuts down from sleep deprivation. Tinkering with ye olde IT shit helps get me through it. I have be subscribed sleeping but prefer not to take then as they affect me to around mid day the next day.

Had my morning coffee then off on my 1/2hr twice daily work. When I arrived home opened the shed and was pleasantly surprised to view the Xandros 3.0 KDE 3 desktop on the Conpaqs Monitor. It had completely detected all the hardware on the system, a reason I like it compare to ather Distros of the same era. I uses version 2.6.9 of the Linux kernal. Xandros 2.0 uses version 2.4.22 depending what variantion it (Standard, Deluxe or Busseness editions was when it was pressed to the CDRom. Pulled the hdd with Xandos 2.0install out to the shed were I'll replace BigFoot hdd with Xandros 3.0 install on it and fit the Xandros 2.0 hdd to the Compaq system then fire it up and see what happen

 

[Caluser2000]

Those that have shown interest in this thread may have not notice the two pane text file manager Midnight Commander is running on every desktop. this shows it has been around for at least twenty five years. I find it very handy and on any current Distro I install on my systems. If it is installed by default I'll drag it out of that Distros repository's., OK some don't like it for various reasons but they do know it exist. I find it very hard to believe that a person has in the *NIX world has never heard of it at all..

The pics below show it running on my main day to day system which is a 775 3.2 Ghz P4 with 4gigs if ram. Youtude, discord, reddit etc etc run fine in Firefox on 32-bit Linux Mint Debian Edition 5. I upgraded the P4 from LMDE4 to LMDE5 without any bother what so ever. My HP/Compaq Presario CQ62 Laptop has a fresh install of 64-bit LMDE5. Both of those run XFCE4 as their Desktop Eviroments. XFCE4 can run on system from the i586/Pentiun 1 class computer systems right up to current computer systems.The Red Hat 6.0 also has Mindnight Commonder installed by default running on the GNOME 1.x Desktop Enviroment it and was released back in 1998 or there abouts.

 

[Caluser2000]

I find Linux so robust I'm quite happy for my three year grandson can sit on the chair in front of it punch away on the keyboard with leafpad, a text editor, open to see what output comes from every key he pushes. Or play around with the mouse in hand swinging it around watching the reflection of the red movement sensor passing over any object he passes it over.....

 

[Caluser2000]

I'll halt the Red Hat 6.0 install and the Compaq down and remove the hdd.

Next up for a change I'll see what with some hdds preinstalled with OS/2. 2x OS/2 Warp v3 setups on a 5.25" BigFoot and 3.5" Quantum hdds. Then one OS/2 Warp v4 on a Fujitsu 3.5" hdd.

Oh an when I pulled the Red Hat 6.0 bundle off the self by the P4 system a CD with Slackware 3.5 fell out. I thought I'd tossed it out when book it can with called The LINUX Network was totally water damage when we had a torrential rain downfall that over came water drainage setup and a lot of water managed to get over 1" concrete lip water soak a few cardboard boxes I had some computer related items in. The book with CD on the inside of the back cover was in the bottem of one of the boxes that got soaked and completely ruined.

 

[Caluser2000]

Damn it I'm having one of those sleepless night episodes.

Here are pics of messages you can get playing around with ye olde IT shit:

 

[Caluser2000]

Hello Possums!

In the end I did manage to get some extra hours kip in after consuming half a dozen soft lollies. The suger must have calmed the grey matter down I just had a quick over the post I've made in this thread to have refresh. I didn't mention I'd tested two BigFoots hdds. One had an pre install of SeSU 7.3 and the other had a pre install of Turbo Linux 6.0. I think I may post a pic of them earlier on in this thread. I played with them soom time ago before having my mental break down 8 years ago. When I connected the drive to the AIO compact system they both booted up directly to the bash command prompt with no X windows errors at all. I typed startx then pressed the enter key and both distros booted in to there respected default DEs. KDE for SeSE and GNOME 1.* for Turbo Linux 6..ll. I'll call those two as a success as that was how I set them up all those years ago.

I do hope NoBody believes me now

Got to go as I can hear the foot steps of our four year old grandson running down the hallway from his Dads bedroom. I'll have to keep him occupied so Granny can have usual Sunday lay in for another hour and a half or so.

Cop ya later....

 

[Caluser2000]

I'v just complete making the two boot disk need to boot the Slackware 3.5 cd I recently found. I had not done this before and a good learning exercise. I'm 63 and as that old saying goes "It is never too late to learn something new. So if you look at the pics below you should be able to figure out what I did. I used my Zenith 286LP Plus(286/12 cpu) running MS Dos 5 and using the parralel port BaclPack cdrom drive label E: to complete this task. I did two fresh formats of two 1.44 floppy doing the procedure with the /U switch. I tested the Slackware 3.1 disks and cd installation up to the installation menu to make sure they functioned as intended.

 

[Caluser2000]

Successfully installed Reh Linux 5.2 on the 8gig Quantum hdd that was giving my compact Compaq grieve. There were two X windows configuration tools back then. They are the text base Xconfigurator and the graphical X86Setup. Both of these are in the /usr/X11R6/bin directory.

Good old Midnight Commender is included in cluded by default as well.

See the pectorial story below.......

 

[Caluser2000]

There was a hell of a lot books publish back in them there olden days. The Linux ones, including Linux for Dummies, had at least one or more Distros availible in a plastic or paper envolope on the back or front or both book covers. You could purchase them outright or singn one out of your public library. Sales men were showing off there latest and greatest version of their OS. It was even given away in promotional material like the IBM OS/2 Warp v4 Server in the large ring binder in the pic below.

 

[Caluser2000]

If you ever have a dependency in Linux trying to use the make command on a programs source do make sure you have the appropriate compiler such as gcc and its supporting library files will you. Any long time computer hobbiest with osolutely no formal training at all knows this didn't you know. ;P

Dependency problem definitely does happen if you DON'T know what you are doing so RTFM!!!!.

 

[Caluser2000]

Having verified the Red Hat 5.2 installation 100% okely dokely by successfully installing it on my K6-2 400 testing system I had any go at trying it on the Compaq. The installation went through smooth as a knife spreading soft butter on a piece of toast. I tried generic monitor this time just to see what happens. I was presented with a desktop that was obvisiously too large for the 14" CRT monitor but you could view the unseen portions by moving the mouse curser up, down, left or right. Now this is terribly easy to sort out. Open Midnight Commander go to the /usr/X11R6/bin directory
highlight the *X86Setup (the star in front of it and color green when using Midnight Commander indicates it is an executable program) then press the Enter key to run the program. Once its loaded change Xwindows I what you like the Xwindows output on the moniter( CRT or LCD) to what you desire. X86Setup will run a test of Xwindows show if your settings acanges re good or not. If good it will display a black and white dotted background with a huge X in the center of the background. If bad X68Setup will just kick you out back to Midnight Commander in the rather over sized desktop.

NOTE: If someone on a vintage forum tells you Xwindows in Linux is slow and hard to configure they are posting complete and utter BS! You should be able to get some suitable up on the monitor using one of Xwindows configuration programs juch as X86Setup on old Linux Distos. They obviously don't have a clue what they are doing and should go have a sit down and RTFM!!!

Next up three hdd preintsalled with IBM OS/2 and one hdd preinstalled with OpenBSD...............

 

[Caluser2000]

I've interrupted this borardcast to point out that Red Hat 5.2 IPX and AppleTalk server deamons activated on start up so it could well make a good quick and dirty server for those networking protocols.

Now back to my scheduled programming.....

 

[Caluser2000]

The LMDE 5 update manager alerted me on my P4 system me I had up so installed them. One file was the latest Linux kernal so I have to reboot the system IMMEDIATELY..........

No I don't. The only two updates that I know are kernel and grub boot loader updates. I'll be shutting down this system tonight when I go to bed and wake it up tomorrow with the newest kernel doing its job.

Linux is a great Computer Desktop Operating System......

 

[Caluser2000]

Well alrighty then.

Fired this P4 3.2Ghz system up with the new kernal installed and the system is runnung swimmingly. Absolutely no problems at all

As I'm typing this my Compaq P200MMX system is install Red Hat Linux 7.2 and my Zenith 286/12 system is wrting a boot disk image for Damn small Linux. Who said ea males can't multitask especially us ancient ones

Ok the results of testing the three hdd preloaded with OS/2 Warp and the with OpenBSD are in!

The first hdd was a Quantum BigFoot 5.25" hdd with IBMs OS/2 v3 Warp. FAIL!. Gave a dll error and completely locked up the system. could ctl-alt-del. Hard reboot to corm firm the issue. Yip same thing. Ok lets go into system restore menu by pressing alt-F1 when a white OS/2 and box showed up in the upper left hand corner. Tried all those options except for ESC, that is just a normal boot up, Exactly the same thing occurred on every selection. NEXT!

This time a Quantum 3.5" hdd again loaded with IBMs OS/2 v3 Warp. SUCCESS! There were a few errors for drivers then don't exsist on the system so this is to be expected. I just enter though these and after a wee while was presented with the Work Place Shell desket with a couple of network related dialogue boxes. Again to be expected as I haven't even copleted my house to shed Cat6 cable run yet. I smiled. NEXT!

3,5" Seagate hdd within the range available for this system with IBMs OS/2 v4 Warp installed. FAIL! This time at the blue boot screen. complete lock up like the one above. Hard booted and same result. Went into the boot menu as per above and tried every choice except for ESC. Still no go. BUMMER! Next up OpenBSD...

OpenBSD on a Maxtor hdd. I'll call is one a partial failure as I understand the kernal is configured just for the system it was originally installed, AMDK6-2 400 testing system. It booted up and went through the normal hardware detection process then halted. No responce from the keyboud to do a warm reboot. Hard reboot to see if it did the same thing. It did so I went inside my house and have breeky. About hour later after stuffing myself with Skippy corn flakes, fruit and yogurt I went back out to the shed to have a sqizz at the the compact Compaq. OpenBSD was still stuck at the place so switch the system off.

I've provided some stone etchings I carved into my cave wall below for your viewing pleasure.

Disk image writing the floppy on the Zenith and my Compaq is nearly at the sage it requires CD2.

 

[Caluser2000]

I know y'all have been sitting on the edges of waiting for my next post in this thread

Preinstalled Dos hdds.

I'll let my cave etchings do all the talking......

 

[Caluser2000]

Well what do you know?

Red Hat 7.1 installed with out a hiccup and detected ALL my Compaq Presario 5522 in one go and loaded up successfully after one reboot. You can not do better than that on majority of any other Desktop Computer Operating Systems on a fresh installation. Just like the 32-bit Debian 11 installation on my mid 2000s laptop last night mentioned in Joes thread. Nothing has changed really in that respect. When testing these older Linux Distros I see improvement with ever new versions of them. I'm enjoying this and I hope some of the other VCFED.ORG members are as well. I've attemped to inject a wee bit of humour for mebers and refresh some of us old folks memories of the past

 

[Caluser2000]

SUSe 7.2 installation went very smooothly. Only one reboot. I chose the Graphical install with KDE. A few other choices are given at the login screen. wanted including good ol Window Maker. This was my main window manager on my first Linux only system, a HP slimline system with P200mmx cpu. so has a soft spot for it . When Desktop Environments they take a bit longer because they dot file (/.file) which are text confirurations files created in the users home directory. The a program isn't loaded or stops with an error just delete the corresponding dot file then most of the the problem program will fire up fine creating another dot file.It happen a few times with Netscape 4.2 when I started investigating what Linux was all about. If you look at some of the Midnight Commander pics I post previously you should get the idea.