Compaq Presario 5522

[Caluser2000]

I'm just down loading a couple of versions of NextStep.

I also will be hooking the compact Compaq original hdd with Windows 95 upgrade over Windows 3.1 the machine was bundled with when sold in 1995. I haven't fired that a in a few years so it will be a memory refresh for me.

Stay tuned......

 

[Caluser2000]

Put the original hdd in fire the ol gal up. It detected the change in hdd so I press F1 key required to save the new configuration. Being a good little Desktop Computer Operating System it booted up and insert the Windows 95 cd in because of a hardware change. In this case removed the OEM modem and fitted an Ethernet network card. Inserted the cd into the dvd rom drive and pressed the enter key and it proceeded to install the nics driver. Then it pick that daylight saving had kick and sorted that out. And promptly loaded the background image and fired up the start up chime. Coming from the new speakers I'd fitted the chime was very very crisp and clear. My my I haven't heard that sound for yonks.

The desktop came up fine and with out any bother at all. Looney Toons Incredable Machine was fired up and again the theme tune was crisp and clear.

Next I fired up the 5522s Compag promotional video. It was as smooth as anything I've see on Youtube on this P4 Linux box. It the resolution was lower.

I could double click to run the programs but right click a press Open.

Engoy........

 

[Caluser2000]

As I mentioned earlier before you install any Computer Operating System, and application software, documentation beforehand espesially it's hardware compatibility list. This will list the hardware the software Should install on without any issues. Ye Olde softwrare generally had it in dead tree format. It not that a PDF file or text file on the installion CD/floppys and quite possibly html format you could peruse it in your we browser on you day to day computer.

 

[Caluser2000]

You will note that Sparc Solaris 8 states right there on the front of the box the there is noooo way it can be installed on physical x86 system hardware.

 

[Caluser2000]

I found a couple of smaller Maxtor hdds in the drawer under my testing table in the conservatory. They were not labelled so I had absolutely no idea of what was on them or if either was okey dokey. So I took them at to the shed to test them on the compact compact.
The first one a "No Operating System" error. The second one just didn't show up at all and just kept locking up after I tried booting them both from DR Dos 6 and IBM Dos 5.02.

Took them inside and booted the first one up after setting its CHS settings from the stick on the top of the hdd in my AMD K6-4 400 testing system it boot straight into IBM Dos 5.02 and is around 140megs so ancient. So it's a goodie.

I did the same with second one but no go at all. And when I booted up the DR Dos 6 boot disk the hdd was not detected at all so I've biffed it in to my useless parts bin under my test bench in the shed.

Now to label the good one........

 

[Caluser2000]

A pic of Desktop Operating Systems I've tested out that can be installed successfully or pre installed on hdds attached on this i586/P1 class system. Also Red Hat 5.2 plus plus all the Red Hat 6.x series. As well as win9x.

 

[Caluser2000]

Mow you can see there is no need not to be able install a Linux Distro on such an ancient system IF the said hardware requirements are within the hardware range for that ancient computer and the Linux Distro you intend to install . Just RTFM before you even attempt to install a Linux Distro on that ancient computer. I can not state this often enough. It's a huge point of failure for the clueless.....

 

[Caluser2000]

I just made two PLOP boot loader disks on this here P4 Linux box and tested of disks on the AMD K6-2 400 testing setup.
It's certainly not rocket science if you can read

Mount the floppy disk drive you want the image to go on.Open a terminal. Type sudo with the entry in the readme.txt file and press enter. Type in your username password then press enter. Once the dd process is completed. Unmount the fdd. Wait for the message in the top right of the screen stating data is being writen to disk is finished. Remove the disk out of the floppy drive it and test PLOP is functioning correctly on any system 386 and over with a functioning fdd. DONE!

 

[Caluser2000]

Tried the preinstalled OS/2 v4 Warp hdd again on the 5522 last night before I popped off to the land of NOD. Same result so the 4.3gig hdd is obvious just over the max size the systems bios can handle. Not bad considering it was sold in 1995 preloaded withe MS Dos 6.22 and MS Windows 3.1. K6-2 400 testing system tops out at around 10gig.

I 'll try one of the PLOP disks I made last night and see how the 5522 goes using bootable optical media.

The second PLOP disc will stay with the K6-2 400 to test everything works before trying on the 5522,

Prior preparation prevents piss poor performance!

 

[Caluser2000]

I've just tested bth PLOP disk and the result was not positive. They both came up with a no CDROM found. I tried numerous CD-R/Ws and a few pressed CDs/DVDs. Now I've had this issue before with the most current PLOP version when I had my dear departed Compaq Presario 425CDS. So I tried and earlier version of PLOP and that booted up Damn Small Linux just fine on the with an Intel 486DX2/66 cpu and 64megs of ram. I'll try that again and post my results in this thread.

I'll give one of the PLOP floppys a try on the 5522 just just in case it is just one of those wee software quirks you can get on Ye Olde computers

 

[Caluser2000]

Well Well Well.. Theee holes in the ground. Whatdoyaknow! The PLOP boot diskmenu popped up, I select ed cdrom and the 5522 is now in the process of installing Slackware 3.5 of the blue cd I've showed previously.

I'll go and have a granddad nap then go and have a sqizzy of how it got on. The installation process show have been completed well before then.

See ya'll in a bit ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...........

 

[Caluser2000]

Well the Slackware installation went just swimmingly without any issues what so ever. I gave it another shot just in case it was a fluke. No no fluke the second install went a smooth as a hot knife slicing though butter. Less than half an hour. Now this Distro came out in 1999 with Slackware is the longest running Distro EVER. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slackware

Thanks for asking. Yes Midnight Commander is included by default I didn't create a swap partition this time around either.

 

[Caluser2000]

Looks like an earlier version of Vector Linux installed without a hitch . Just having a midnight snack so I'll post the results with pic later on in the morning.

See you'll then With pics of course......

 

[Caluser2000]

The Vector Linus install went fine. Xorg setting weren't correct but that is easy to sort out by pressing Ctl-Alt-F2, then log in as root, run Midnight Commander and scroll to the /usr/X11R6/bin directory and see what programs start with either an uppercase or lowercase X with a * in front of them and have a go at sorting it out OR go to the /etc/X11 then scroll down to the bottom to see if there are any files that start with xorg. These are just plain text files used to configure Xwindows and contain a lot of information on how to go about doing that.. Easy as really. ClueLess and co. can't RTFM. All of them Exspirts in the own lunch time I'm sure.

Note the background colour change from blue to black when using Midnight Commaner as root(admin) obviously.

 

[Caluser2000]

If you are talkingthem Linux distros ar mde up of three types-Debian/DEB based(Ubuntu and it's spin offs), Red Hat Based/RPM and Source Based like Slackware, Victor Linux, TinyCore ect. It really is as simple as that.

You may also notice in all the pics of Midnight Commander that they are not much different in Distros from 1998 through to the present. That is because it isn't!!!

 

[Caluser2000]

Gave Damn Small Linux a shot. The CD/w with an older version which didn't play ball. I burnt the latest version fron iso to CD/W. That version went swimming with no problems all using the PLOP bot loader disk.Gave Damn Small Linux a shot. The CD/w with an older version which didn't play ball. I burnt the latest version fron iso to CD/W. That version went swimming with no problems all using the PLOP boot loader disk.DSL is a live version of Linux that is very very small so great for Ye Olde kit. I even had the early version boot up live on my old Compaq Presario CD 524CDS with 486DX2/66 cpu and 64megs of ram. My 5522 has 72meg total. You can even install it the hdd as an early Debian system which is cool. The first boot image is the early DSL the one below it is the more recent version of DSL.

 

[Caluser2000]

Managed to replicate ClueLess's failed old Slackware installation attempt. Definitely PEKAC!.

 

[Caluser2000]

Went to just Slackware 13 a shot on the 5522 but was giving a "Can't find drive x0 error". Because of this I grabbed the Duvian Jessie a shot, This is a Debian based Disto with out systemd. It use the old style init routine. Dispite needing at least 76megs of ram tdeclared it dosn't support the P1 cpu type he install process kicked in to the installation put in to Low Mem Mode just fine and dandy....... Low Mem Mode is more hands on than a normal installation but easy enough to get through with a bit of reading the prompts.

 

[Caluser2000]

All the BSDs failed. FreeBSD and MidnightBSD, a derivative ,give an error. NetBSD and OpenBSD core dump.

Selecting every boot option TinyCore Linux just dumped to the command prompt showing nothing if I typed ls and pressed enter.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Linux and Unix are both very sensitive to memory problems, you may want to run Memtest for a few hours.

It could also be that your CPU isn't supported. The i386, i486, i586 and i686 designations used to tell you what x86 feature set that the binary was compiled to use. Now, they've all become generic designators of 32 bit x86 for something in the Pentium 4 era and newer. Most people in the Linux community that build 32 bit packages don't keep around ancient machines to do testing on, and invariably an instruction set is used that those old Pentium CPUs don't have and makes them crash.

Even older Linux and Unix distros in the late 90s and early 2000s were rapidly dropping support for 386, 486 and early Pentium machines because of the lack of RAM and speed.