[CLUE-Tech] Linux on a Compaq Armada 1590DMT

[Jed S. Baer]

On Sun, 6 Jun 2004 21:44:55 -0600
"Jed S. Baer" <thag at frii.com> wrote:

> I'm going to boot a RH floppy, and see how far I can get with RH8.0,
> since that's what else I have sitting around here.

None of my RH boot floppies would work. Furthest I could get was a kernel
panic.

> But, I have a question, the answer to which is not at the tuxmobile
> website (i.e. linuxlaptops.org). Does anyone know how to get the BIOS
> screen up on one of these?

Found an article and some downloadable Compaq utilities. There's a
"diagnostic" partition on the HD (err, supposed to be, anyway) that holds
the software that gets at the BIOS. Only problem is, the utility to create
that partition comes from another utility that builds a boot floppy that
won't boot. Well, too much detail I guess. But there's another Compaq
utility that builds a bootable floppy with the BIOS program on it, and
that's good enough, I guess.

Now if I could only get a floppy to boot far enough to start an install.

jed
-- 
http://s88369986.onlinehome.us/freedomsight/

... it is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday
facilitate a police state. -- Bruce Schneier