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Slax USB Bootable On Web DT366

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:24 pm
by robotman
Hello, I recently bought a web DT366 tablet and am having trouble installing linux on it. I downloaded the latest version of slax 6.1.2 and tried to use unetbootin to burn it to a flash drive I formatted to fat using the HP utility but it wont boot... It gets to the point where it is loading the kernel and says SYSLINUX 4.03 2010-10-22 ect. but then freezes up. I feel like I am missing something really obvious but I can't figure out what... Any help would be appreciated.

Re: Slax USB Bootable On Web DT366

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:24 pm
by quotaholic
Where to start. Slax as with many other operating systems will try to default to an 1024x768 resolution which is unsupported n the DT. We have 800x600 screens. It would take a vga=771 or similar on the grub boot line. Try booting to text mode by hitting escape when the splash screen shows and startx after you have a prompt showing Slax was built from slackware. Until kernel version 2.6.29 we did not have hard button support on slackware / slax. Another limiting factor that may deter one from using slax is that it does not support the touchscreen. Porteus is the continuation of the slax project and is much more current. It has a number of tools that Slax never had including install package from source. I was able to get the touch screen working on Porteus a few months back but never made an image as I was not successful in recompiling the kernel and repackaging it in to a functioning set of lzma files.

Hope it helps
quotaholic

Re: Slax USB Bootable On Web DT366

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 7:33 pm
by robotman
I think I am doing something very wrong with the creation of the bootable usb disk. It just keeps stopping at the point where it outputs syslinux 4.03, I'm pretty sure it is not even loading my kernel which is strange. Is there a guide for making a USB bootable linux for the DT366 that will work with the touch screen? Sorry it seems like I can never get a bootable USB to work. I am now trying to use a ubuntu live usb because it is the only one I could get to boot on another pc, however on the DT366 the above still occurs. I don't even have a chance to press esc. I think I might need to change the display in the grub config file but I I'm not sure where to do that.

Re: Slax USB Bootable On Web DT366

Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 7:05 am
by quotaholic
If you have the gx series your hard drive will recognize as /dev/hda if you have the lx series hardware set your hard drive will recognize /dev/sda. This difference may screw up your usb attempts.

If you have GX series hardware you are limited to usb 1.1 and running an os from that will be like watching fingernails grow. In fact this hardware is so slow that the only way to get decent response is to install it to the internal flash.

I have not made any usb bootable sticks with functioning touch screen as the performance is much better on the internal flash. Technically porteus would be a good candidate for that as its sets up a persistent changes folder / partition.

The challenge you will face with ubuntu is how to get the touchscren drivers installed and make it so that they are there on reboot. If you want to play with linux on your DT use one of the images I have made. The Debian 6 is the most current and supports 95 percent of the hardware. It was done with clonezilla so you could back up your existing install and image your DT with linux in the same session. It took many of us a lot of work to get linux running on these things. Why reinvent the wheel? If you do want to pursue your own spin please do read up on these forums as I have shared all my mistakes too.

quotaholic

Re: Slax USB Bootable On Web DT366

Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 1:41 pm
by robotman
Alright I'm going back to basics. I am following this tutorial, forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1069&p=3792&h ... illa#p3792 but I am still having problems! My bios version is 1.18 so usb booting is not a problem I downloaded clonezilla from the link provided then using the diskimage option "[EDIT] IN UNETBOOTIN" I burn the clonezilla image to a 2gb usb flash drive formatted using the HP utility to to fat. When I plug it into a HP laptop it boots up into clonezilla but on the DT366 I purchased here http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWNX:IT it dose not go past the screen that says SYSLINUX ect... I know I am doing something wrong but I have no idea what... Is there a bios setting I need to configure?

Re: Slax USB Bootable On Web DT366

Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 2:00 pm
by quotaholic
Okay you have GX series hardware. Apologies however the Debian 6 image will only work on LX series hardware. The hanging portion that you are seeing is likely due to to the software looking for hardware that does not exist. The GX series has /dev/hda for hard drive associations. The LX series has /dev/sda.

I am currently building a GX image for debian 6 but having problems with penmount drivers. Currently going back and forth with them on implementation. I have a few debian 5 images that will work however there was always a missing element. If I remember right blueman bluetooth manager was not in my debian 5 images. There is a puppy image here in the forum that also works well on the GX series 366. For debian and puppy one needs a familiarity with the "dd" tool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)

If you feel like beating my to the finish line download yourself a image of debian 6 xfce - lxde. Its on one cd opposed to 12 dvd's. Perform a minimal install and start to build up your image from there. Once you hae a base cli system installed Commands like:

Code: Select all

sudo aptitude install -R --without-recommends xserver-xorg-video-vesa xfonts-base x11-utils xserver-x11-utils xterm xinit xauth
Will bring in a minimal functioning xorg from the cd used to install. From there install xfce or lxde using the same command syntax. I found that I didnt have the room to do an apt-get update as it brings in 40 - 50 megs of crap that one cannot get rid of. Somewhere on this forum someone had a way around this but I cant seem to find the post.

That and I just got an eviction notice this morning so I would offer to help out more on this however I need to get packing and relocating.