i845 conundrum

[Omnscnt(Sortof)]

I just installed Debian 3.0 r2 (for about the seventh time now) and after stating several other threads with question as to why my GUI can't start, and no ones suggestions working I think I may have finally diognosed the problem, the 2.4 kernal does not support my i845 graphics thing (card or chip,I dunno) I am using a acer power sv and also have windows XP on it [thats what I'm working off of now sice I'm lost without a graphical interface (I was raised a windows user)]. I know there is an unstable kernel 2.6 out there but I don't know if it supports i845 or not and I don't know how to download it the way the website has it set up and then I wouldn't know how to get it from XP to my debian half of my hard disc either. This is frusterating. Oh and this is the site with the 2.6 kernel- http://www.backports.org/debian/

[JohnT]

thats what I'm working off of now since I'm lost without a graphical interface. You would have to download and configure and compile a new kernel all from the commandline (no GUI). You could download it using "wget", but if your lost without a GUI, then I don't know what to recommend.

What is your video card? If I'm not mistaken, the 845 is supported in the 2.4 kernel.

[Omnscnt(Sortof)]

"Intel(R) 82845G Graphics Controller" I think this is it, windows does not make all these technical things clear. If this is just the driver XP uses then I may have to pull out the computer open it up and see, but I wont have time for that immediately. In the installation graphics card setup (pick it from a list) it only had three options from Intel (if that's what the "i" in "i845" stood for) and it only went up to i810. Furthermore I do have "Using Linux, Sixth edition" (big black and gold book) to help me with my command line phobia/problems but I would have to configure the net connection and I'm not sure how to do that since the only good pay connection I have is for Juno and I don't think they support linux- or their own customers for that matter. The biggest problem I've been haveing with command line lately has been permissions, I googled for help on that and found many solutions but they don't seem to have an effect (none that I can notice without GUI) and I still can't seem to access to the floppy, even under super user, is that normal? (I understand that permisions apply to regular users, but I thought not super user)

[JohnT]

"Intel(R) 82845G Graphics Controller"(here's the driver link and documentation for install)
http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-010512.htm

I still can't seem to access to the floppy, even under super user, is that normal? (I understand that permisions apply to regular users, but I thought not super user)Until you get your system up, I would just run as root for now as long as your the only one to access your machine. What command are you using in attempting to access your floppy?

This is a quote from one Debian site:
"The current “stable” distribution of Debian GNU/Linux is version 3.0r2, codenamed woody. It was released on
November 21st, 2003."
I would seriously think about upgrading to something a little more updated. Thats almost a year old. it's quite posssible that the version of XFree you have doesn't have support for your chip, however that doesn't mean you can't configure your system to support it, but its gonna be a long haul if you go that route.

[Omnscnt(Sortof)]

I've been trying /dev/fd0 but it gives me that "permission denied" error ,even under super user.
As for woody being a year old already I got the stable version since I knew nothing about linux at the time and "experimental" and "unstable" gave me the impession that they wern't going to work right and have lots of bugs.{paid $30 for the disks [not that that matters now, but it ticks me off (them being obsolete in all)]} As for XFree86, I think it already has the latest version which does support i845 (XFree86 4.something I think) I looked that up a while ago.

[JohnT]

I'll repeat:" What command are you using in attempting to access your floppy?"

[Omnscnt(Sortof)]

I tried DIR /dev/fd0 just to see what the exact filenames were on it and then add it on the end of the syntax like this /dev/fd0/[filename_here]. I thought I would be able to work out issues like this when (if) I get the GUI working. I also tried cat, but it did somthing realy um, weird, it started doing stuff in the floppy drive and gibbrish kept wizzing down the screen for several minutes. I have half a mind to try another distro and use this one to revitalize some old win 95 era computers, (it'll be much easier on these old second hand machines since they're bound to be supported and don't care about the win 95 os since I somehow managed to kill it awile back anyway.) but I have more things to try yet (mostly on the page you directed me to in a previous post).

[JohnT]

http://home.ubalt.edu/abento/linux/terminal/mount.html

[Omnscnt(Sortof)]

I downloaded the drivers, Is there a way to transfer them to linux (from XP) via, the floppies maybe? And after a quick look at that last link, I thought the way floppies were now was considered standard and nearly all OS'es recognized them that way. And if I have to configure a connection on linux to do this anyway, do you know of any free linux ISP's? I'm still looking, but free ISP's have made themselves scarce lately (even for windows).

[JohnT]

Free ISP: (limited free usage)
http://www.access4free.com

If you plan on maintaining a dual-boot setup it would be advisable to have a small FAT32 partition that both XP and Linux can read and write to.

[Omnscnt(Sortof)]

I tried some of the stuff on mounting floppies from command line from that link, but it also tels me that there is no such file or directery. Is my system just screwed up? furthermore, I know that Debian knows I have a floppy drive since instead of dual-boot, I just made in installation,a boot floppy, and booted into linux from that. And about the extra FAT32 partition, is there a special way to make that accesable to linux from command line?

[JohnT]

I tried some of the stuff on mounting floppies from command line from that link, but it also tells me that there is no such file or directery. You will have to be more specific than "stuff". How do we know what to recommend ? Cut n paste your command and the error you receive.

[Omnscnt(Sortof)]

"mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy" If it said such a basic seeming file isn't there, could my installation be missing files?

[JohnT]

Visibly look for the device /dev/fd0.....and also the file /mnt/floppy. If they are both there, check the permissions of both. Check your /etc/fstab. Normally, only the superuser can mount file systems. However, when fstab contains the user option on a line, then anybody can mount the corresponding system.

[Omnscnt(Sortof)]

I tried the DIR /dev/ to visuallly look, and one problem that I only know the DOS solution for: Theres too much stuff on the list and I can only see the "y" and "z" commands and can't scroll up.

[JohnT]

Just use the GUI file manager, but if you want to use the commandlinelocate <name of file> | more To insure that you find what your looking for on your system update your database occasionally.updatedb -u

[Omnscnt(Sortof)]

The GUI doesn't work, that was the original problem ; I can only use command line. I'll try your solution and a few others but I've wasted too much time on this, I going to order another distro, and use this one for my older computers instead.