Report: Linux install on 701C

["John H. Kim" <jokim@tuna.mit.edu>]

It took me nearly a day, but I finally got it running.

I've got a 701C with 8MB and a 720MB hard drive.  I also have IBM's
PCMCIA ethernet card, so I decided to be different and try Red Hat's
Linux distribution, v2.1.  It supports installation over ftp if you
have a supported ethernet adapter (including PCMCIA) and are on the
Internet via ethernet.

My first problems seemed to be memory related.  Red Hat's installation
requires at least 8MB RAM and an 8MB swap partition.  I wanted to install
a small copy of Linux so I could backup all the demo software that came
with the 701.  Catch-22.   When will vendors start to ship large drives 
with two partitions?  I couldn't get Novell TCP/IP for DOS to recognize
the ethernet card, and I ended up accidently deleting most of the demo 
software.  I gave up and formatted the entire drive.

I noticed the external floppy was rather slow (3x-4x) at reading Linux
boot disks (both Red Hat's and Slackware).  After that, things went 
surprisingly smoothly.  Red Hat's distrubution really does install via
ftp.  However, the ftp install doesn't give you the option to pick
individual components from a series (I suspect the CD-ROM and hard drive
installs do - they use an X interface), so I went with a minimal install
of the basic and network series.  I can always install the remaining
components later, one by one via ftp.  Avoid the dosemu series at this
stage.  It caused out-of-memory errors and hung the install.

After Red Hat finished installing (the menus are friendlier than the
Slackware distribution), it installed LILO, rebooted, and I got an "LI"
before the computer locked up.  I spent the last 15 hours trying to
figure this one out.

My configuration was a 250MB DOS partition, a 422MB Linux partition,
and a 16MB Linux swapfile.  I suspected it was a problem with the
720MB hard drive having more than 1024 cylinders, but none of the
tried and true solutions to that problem helped.  Eventually I figured
it out - the 701's BIOS remaps the hard drive to <1024 cylinders.  The 
Linux fdisk program will report 1400 cyl, 16 heads, 63 sectors, which
I suspect is the true geometry.  But if you run the dparam DOS program
that comes with lilo, it'll report 699 cyl, 32 heads, 63 sectors.  I 
had to give the boot floppy a hd=699,32,63 parameter, repartition, and 
reinstall, but it worked just fine after that.

So if you're unsure of the disk geometry, grab the dparam.com and
dparam.img DOS programs that come with lilo and run them first.  If
you don't get the geometry right the first time, your partitions
will not fall on cylinder borders and you'll have to repartition and
reinstall to fix it.  Does anybody know what happens to those two extra 
cylinders at the end?

Another reason I went with Red Hat is that their install scripts
support upgrading - no more wondering what files are safe to delete
if you install a new kernel or other software.  I haven't had much
chance to play with it yet, but it'll be worth it if this feature
really works.  Check out http://www.redhat.com if you're interested.

Do some of you 701 Linux folks suppose we should put up a web page
or something about our experiences?
___________________________________________________________________________
John H. Kim         The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one
jokim@mit.edu       that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I have
jokim@tuna.mit.edu  found it!) but "That's funny ..." -- Isaac Asimov