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Found an old Linux hard drive

Robbbert

Robbbert

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2019
Messages
447
This drive came with a bunch of Windows pcs from my former workplace in 2016. The Linux drive was by itself, not installed in any machine. I plugged it into one of my many spare Compaq EN series (C500) chassis, it produced a wall of text then wanted me to log in. So I went online and found out how to bypass that, so now I get a prompt. Since then, the drive has sat at the back of the cupboard, unused.

But now, although I have no interest in Linux, I'd like to know what flavour is installed, and how to find out if there's any use in keeping it. It would be nice if I could get it onto the network, should that be possible.

So, just now I have plugged the HD into another C500, it booted up as before, and is sitting at a prompt. It says

(none):/#

So, question 1: How do I find out what flavour and version this is?
Question 2: How do I find out if it can be used for anything useful?
Question 3: How do I get it onto my local network. Machine has a Intel E100B PCI card.

I don't know anything about Linux, so you'll have to hold my hand through the process. I don't know what shell it's in, or how to use vi (or even if it's there).

The VGA video and PS2 keyboard are working. There's a PS2 mouse plugged in, and it has 512MB of RAM. The CPU is a 500MHz Mendicino. It is capable of running all versions of Windows up to W2K.
 
In bash, it usually tells you what user/host you're logged in as. The fact it states (none) might mean it's in some weird state.

Try and see what init level you're in by typing "runlevel". Most Linux distros run the user in init 3 for text mode or init 5 for GUIs. You'll generally need to be in at least init 3 for the proper services to be running to get around on the system. If you're in init 1/2, you can try typing "init 3" or "init 5" to see if it can get the system up that far. I suspect you may have issues since you don't know what hardware it was originally installed on. GUIs will definitely be a problem, because the X display server used to run GUIs is very picky about video drivers being initialized and running properly for it to start.

Figuring out exactly what Linux distro you're running can be a bit difficult if there's no mention of it on the startup splash screen. You can at least figure out which kernel you're running with "uname -r". Which package manager the distro is using can also give you an idea of what the distro might be. "apt" or "apt-get" is usually used on Debian and Debian based distros like Ubuntu. "yum" and "rpm" is usually used on Red Hat based distros, like Fedora. "zypper" is used on SuSE and OpenSuSE.
 
  1. "uname -a" should give you some info about the system (distro/version/etc)
  2. First i'd poke around the directories to see what's on it.. 'ls' is the equivalent of 'dir'
  3. It could be as easy connecting ethernet to your router, most likely it supports DHCP. Type 'ipconfig' to get a listing of network interfaces and IP's. Depeding on the version of linux, it could be 'ifconfig'.
 
Run midnight Commander if it has been installed by typing mc . This will give you a good visual idea of how the directory structure is layed out.

Have a gander at my Compaq Presario thread https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/compaq-presario-5522 and you'll see examples of Midnight Commander running.

With those specs you can run the lastest 32-bit Linux kernel ( 5.x.x) no worries at all;)
 
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@GiGaBiTe
init: runlevel: command not found
init: init: command not found
uname-r says: 2.4.19-4GB-SMP

@nullvalue
uname -a says:2.4.19-4GB-SMP #1 SMP Tue Apr 12 23:51:32 UTC 2005 i686 unknown
init: ipconfig: command not found
init: ifconfig: command not found

@Caluser2000
init: mc: command not found

I'm guessing from the above that I might not be logged on correctly? Should I set up some kind of a path so commands can be found? What would be a typical example?

Does the uname mean something to you? Google has no finds.
 
Are you in Single user mode still? That might explain the results you are getting. You'll need to mount the hdd to see what is on it.

That screen of text on startup will show you what device, like your Nic, is activated by showing a green OK to the left of the screen. As well as all the devices such as usb contoller, video card, hdds, fdds, opical devices, type of mouse and keyboard etc etc etc....
 
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@Chuck(G)
/sbin/ifconfig had quite a bit to say, obviously I can't copy/paste it, so let's see if I can type all this out...
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module net-pf-3
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module net-pf-6
NET4: Linux IPX 0.47 for NET4.0
IPX Portions Copyright (c) 1995 Caldera. Inc
IPX Portions Copyright (c) 2000, 2001 Conectiva, Inc.
NET4: Appletalk 0.18a for Linux NET 4.0
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module net-pf-9
Warning: cannot open /proc/net/dev (No such file or directory). Limited output.

ls /sbin produced a lot of output, some in green and some in cyan.

@Caluser2000
I don't know what Single user mode is, or how to mount a hdd.

There no green OK anywhere, and the text is meaningless things - I can't see anything about devices.
 
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Show us a pic of the wall of text please. In a normal boot up. IE hit enter at the boot: prompt.

Also what did you type at the boot: prompt to bypass the user Login: prompt?
 
There is no boot prompt - it just starts up. At first it flashes up about PC-DOS and a lot of dots, then it says the video mode is unsupported, so I choose 5 (80x50) or 6 (80x60), then the wall of text appears, most of which scrolls away and can't be retrieved. My phone is very old (not a smartphone), but I'll see if I can get a readable photo.
 

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Definately a LOT of hardware listed there...

You stated you got around user login. HOW?

The picture is fine b but upside down.

Its most likely a duel boot setup with PC Dos and Linux whatever.....
 
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Robbert,
When the Terminal (Command Line) is up you typically see a $ or #.
Code: 
larry@debian:~$
or
Code: 
root@debian:/#

This is telling you, either user is logged in or SUPERUSER is logged in.

In your case you are logged in as SUPERUSER.
So, type users to see if there are any users that have access.
Code: 
users

If robbert were displayed, type in:
Code: 
groups robbert

The following commands should give you lots more information
Code: 
env | grep SHELL=
cat /etc/os-release
uname -r
uname -a
cat /etc/shells
cat /etc/os-release
lsb_release -a
hostnamectl
cat /proc/version
cat /etc/issue
who

who should give you the USER name. In my case it's larry.
So, find out what groups I am a member of..(meaning I can use for read/write access)
Code: 
groups larry
gives:
Code: 
larry : larry tty lp dialout cdrom floppy sudo audio dip video plugdev netdev bluetooth lpadmin scanner vboxusers usbusers

That should allow you to find the Distro and username, if assigned.

Larry
 
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Thanks, but unfortunately only a few of those commands exist.

The ones that worked are:
cat /etc/shells
cat /etc/issue
uname -r
uname -a

/etc/issue just says Welcome
/etc/shells list out 17 lines

/bin/ash
/bin/bash
/bin/bash1
/bin/csh
/bin/false
/bin/ksh
/bin/sh
/bin/tcsh
/bin/true
/bin/zsh
/usr/bin/csh
/usr/bin/ksh
/usr/bin/passwd
/usr/bin/bash
/usr/bin/rbash
/usr/bin/tcsh
/usr/bin/zsh

I found out from google how to display my path (echo $PATH). It is: /usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:.
Looks like colon is the path separator rather than semi-colon in windows/dos.

Is this path ok? If not, what should I add and how?
 
I guess this is just an exercise? You are interested in finding out what Linux distro is on the drive? You are hoping to save some data that is in the drive?

Otherwise, there is little value to trying to actually boot into this instance of Linux. It is from a 2.x kernel, presumably a Caldera distro. It is no longer supported. However, you can just run a modern distro from a DVD or USB flash drive and then poke around on that old distro and look for old data.

I use antiX on most of my old 32-bit machines. It is well supported and has live DVD and Live USB version that will boot directly to a modern usable Linux with very little effort. You will most certainly be further along than trying to use an old Caldera Linux distro. Debian also still supports 32-bit, as does Slackware. But those distros are not targeted at newbies. Both antiX and MX are newbie friendly and will run on that equipment.

here are the links to antiX and MX:

Download – antiX Linux

antixlinux.com antixlinux.com

Look for the "386" in the filename for 32-bit versions.

The majority of people who recommend Linux tell you to use Ubuntu or Fedora, etc. These are modern Linux distros but you will have nothing but trouble trying to run those distros on old computers. At least while you are a newbie to Linux you need to stay away from the mainstream distros.

Once you have one of these modern distros booted from DVD or USB you can mount the hard drive and look around. If you decide not to keep the data on the old drive you can then "install" the new modern Linux distro onto the old hard drive and it will take over the drive and all the previous stuff on that drive will be lost.

Seaken
 
There could be many appliance like firewall distros floating around. It could be so stripped down there is not much to go on here. It is also relatively old as you can see in uname.

To find some clue, it's best to look in /etc for a file that seems like version information and dump it out. For example to get a listing:
ls /etc | more

To see all files with version in the name:
ls /etc/*version*

Another possibility:
ls /etc/*release*

And to dump a file out:
cat /etc/redhat-release

Other than the obvious that you can find there, you'll just have to do some deep digging, if it isn't a major distro.

Robbbert said:
Does the uname mean something to you? Google has no finds.
Click to expand...
Google has turned completely useless for searching for anything that is one off a dictionary word. It will fix your spelling and ignore what you gave it. This means special words and acronyms are starting to be completely inaccessible to people relying on google or most search engines.
 
Thanks everyone for the information. It sounds like it isn't worth worrying about. As to if there's any worthwhile data there, I wouldn't know, and tbh probably don't care.

I'll put the drive back in the cupboard, and eventually reformat it, when the time comes.

40GB IDE drives are fine for older windows, XP and older, using NTFS or FAT32.
 
"ls /home" might at least tell you the names of the various users
"less /var/log/messages" might give some hints
"ls -l /boot" should tell you at least what kernel you're booting
 
If you can connect it to a more modern pc, you can use a linux live distro to browse the file system.

Ubuntu, etc support booting to try the os.
 
seaken said:
The majority of people who recommend Linux tell you to use Ubuntu or Fedora, etc. These are modern Linux distros but you will have nothing but trouble trying to run those distros on old computers. At least while you are a newbie to Linux you need to stay away from the mainstream distros.
Click to expand...

Nobody that knows anything about Linux would recommend a modern Ubuntu or Fedora release on a 500 MHz Celeron, because they wouldn't run, at all. Both distros dropped 32 bit system support years ago.

There are very few modern distros left that still have 32 bit releases, and even fewer that run on old hardware. "32 bit" is a bit of a misnomer, because software developers have long stopped caring about the fine nuances of x86 architecture, and the fact that different pre-64 bit CPUs had different feature sets.

Like there is software built for 32 bit, but also require SSE2 or SSE3, which eliminates all but some of the last 32 bit CPUs released in 2004.
 
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