LinHES Forums
http://forum.linhes.org/

Dell Inspiron 7000 (front end only)
http://forum.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8366		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  rob0214 [ Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Dell Inspiron 7000 (front end only)
Hi all,

Not sure where to put this, but I figured I'd outline my progress of trying to get the Inspiron working as a front end (have a couple of questions too). Maybe this might help others using older equipment for front ends.

Sorry in advance for the long post.

Setup:

Currently, I have Gentoo running myth on a Dell Dimension P4 server. Trying to get the front end running without wiping the Windows partition since the drive on the Inspiron is only 7gb anyway, and it's my only Windows box.

I have the R5A30.2 iso.

Booting:

Took me a long time to figure out what should have been obvious, but the machine (and many other older machines) have problems booting CD-RW media (see: http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.html#S2-12, 4th paragraph).

Problem is, since I'm going to be needing to modify stuff, it's going to be painful and wasteful to test, as it takes a while to burn CDs which I can use only once.

I can't network boot either (I don't think) because I don't have an ethernet port, only a PCMCIA ethernet card.

My proposed solution for this is to try what's termed a poor man's install. I'm assuming that cheat codes for regular knoppix haven't been removed (is this true?), so I can just modify the iso via loopback mount on my Gentoo box, copy the iso over, then:

boot: knoppix bootfrom=/dev/hda/xxxx.iso

I made a boot disk via mkboot /boot/vmlinuz-`uname -r` which might also enable me to do the poor man's install (will try).

Network:

I have a Netgear WG511T card and WGT624 router (with open 128 bit WEP). Got it working via madwifi with the following in /etc/network/interfaces

(see:
http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/FirstTimeHowTo,
http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/SimpleWEPClient,
http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/AuthorizationFailed,
http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/TurboMode)

auto ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp
pre-up /sbin/iwpriv ath0 mode 3
wireless_key XXXXXXXXXX
wireless-essid foobar
wireless-rate auto

I use rate=auto because the wireless tools seem to refuse to send/receive packets if you fix it at, say, 54MB and can't get a strong signal.

I tried turbo (iwpriv ath0 turbo 1), but it didn't work. Either I need to downgrade my router's firmware so that it will do static 108mb, or try madwifi-ng.

Video:

Running live tv, it was very choppy, 2 seconds of video, slight pause, repeat. There was a warning given, but can't remember it offhand.

I'm assuming that DRI isn't working because I ran glxgears, and the X server complained about that. I didn't see whether the gatos drivers are in knoppmyth (are they, couldn't find any info?), so will try that.

Audio:

Non-existent. I need to play with alsa a bit.
Author:  willem [ Wed Feb 08, 2006 1:20 am ]
Post subject: 
Should you still want to try netbooting. Do you happen to have a 3Com 575 PCMCIA adapter? The BIOS allows you to boot from Cardbus NIC and with a 3Com card (and probably others too) PXE booting works just fine.
Author:  rob0214 [ Sat Feb 11, 2006 2:04 am ]
Post subject: 
No, I don't have that card.

More info from tests I've run:

I've tried using Knoppix 4.0.2. Detects the hardware better than Knoppmyth (ie, finds my USB mouse), and can also use the bootfrom cheatcode (which Knoppmyth can't do). It also can do shutdown on my hardware.

About suspend, I get the following errors on boot:

acpi unable to locate rsdp
suspend2 initrd lacks echo>/proc/software_suspend/do_resume


All xine tests were done via SMB mounting the mythtv video directory.

Audio issues:

no audio via mythtv, but get it via xine (knoppix & knoppmyth). I'm guessing it's using OSS.

Video issues:

video skipping in mythfrontend. smooth with xine & knoppmyth. oddly, knoppix has video skipping with xine, unless I force xvideo. maybe mythfrontend isn't using xvideo?

Wireless:

both knoppmyth and knoppix require manual configuration.
Page 1 of 1 All times are UTC - 6 hours
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
http://www.phpbb.com/