AntiX 19.3 on Sony Vaio Picturebook PCG-C1MZX

[Member ArchiMark]

Hi,

Recently discovered antiX linux and successfully installed it on some older little laptops I have such as Toshiba Libretto U105.

Now, trying to install on a nice old little Sony Vaio Picturebook PCG-C1MZX. This was the last version of this laptop, only sold in Japan. Came with Windows XP Home.

Laptop has 384MB RAM (max.) and has 8.9″ display at 1280 x 600.

Can’t boot with USB flash drive. Have to use the Sony CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive to boot. So, made a DVD disc on another computer.

Boots up to the initial antiX screen OK.

Then get error message:

Undefined video mode number: 317

Typed in ‘Scan’ to see what is available. First I tried ‘315’ and then ‘314’ on another attempt to get antiX running.

However, in both attempts, I get the following error message:

Fatal Error

Could not find file antiX/linuxfs

  Searched device: /dev/sdb

    Searched types: usb, cd

All block devices: /dev/sdb  /dev/sda5  /dev/sda2  /dev/sda1  /dev/sda

Please contact BitJam at http://www.antixforum.com

   p = power off
   r = reboot
Select p or r then press <enter>

Hope someone can please advise how to resolve this so I can get antiX running on this old laptop.

Thank you for your help.

Mark

[Member Xecure]

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Hi, ArchiMark

In the boot menu, hit F7 and select Console video = default. Remove all boot parameters except for quiet and add the parameter from=cd (to only boot from CD/DVD) and retry=20 to increase by 10 seconds the time limit to try to find the bood device.

The Boot Options bar should look like:

quiet from=cd retry=20

See if at least it gets to find the DVD and load antiX properly.

Hopefully someone with experience with this kind of trouble can recommend other boot parameters.

If you get to boot to it and see you are too limited in RAM, you could see if this experimental iso can free a bit more RAM.

Welcome to antiX!

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member ArchiMark]

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Hi Xecure,

THANK YOU for your help!

Did as you suggest, and get the following error message:

Welcome to antiX 19.3 (Manolis Glezos)!
     Linux kernel: 4.9.235-antix.1-486-smp

Current boot codes:
      quiet from=cd retry=20

Loading hardware specific modules ...

Scan cd devices. Look for boot (files) antiX/linuxfs

Retry for 20 seconds ......................

Fatal Error
No cd devices found
    p=power off
    r=reboot
Select p or r then press <enter>

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Mark

[Member Xecure]

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Maybe the DVD is not being recognized.
Try with
from=all
boot parameter instead.
If this doesn’t work either we will have to wait for one of the developers to give a suggestion.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member ArchiMark]

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Thanks again for your help!

Tried what you suggested.

Now I get the same Fatal Error as in my original post.

🙁

[Member Xecure]

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Could this be the device?
https://www.notebook-driver.com/sony-pcg-c1mzx-main-specification/

If you still have a USB stick with antiX on it, you could try to boot it from the CD.
It could be slow, but if you boot from CD with a USB stick with antiX connected, and try “from=all”, maybe it can boot from the USB stick instead (it sounds stupid, but I think I saw dolphin_oracle recommend this as a special case at some point in time).

So the process would be:
0. Power off the device with the DVD inside.
1. Connect the USB stick with antiX.
2. Power on the computer and boot from the DVD,
3. Change the F7 value to default and add the boot parameters from=all retry=20 (as before)
4. hit Enter and let it try to find the antiX USB and boot from it.

Does someone else have any suggestion?

Edit: Sorry. I see there is no USB ports, only an external connected way to connect USB.
I have no idea if there is anything we can do to boot it. Maybe to get the HDD out, install antiX frugally from a separate computer, and then reconnect the HDD, boot from DVD and select to boot from a frugal install.

Anyone have any ideas?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Xecure.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Xecure. Reason: Edit- frugal suggestion

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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Are you sure the cd/dvd device works?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by anticapitalista. Reason: fix typos

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member ArchiMark]

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Yes, that’s the one…..

Yes, have a USB stick….

Did as you suggested and now I get:

Mounted boot device....

It started antiX boot process!

And now it’s using the DVD to boot up antiX!

🙂

Now, no more console text….display went black….

Now cursor shows on display….

Now, display shows the antiX desktop!

Yeah!!!

Now, a small window popped up on screen…..

No pinboard was in use.... the 'Default' pinboard has been selected. 

Use 'rox -p=Default' to turn it on in future.

I assume the message means I should add ‘rox -p=Default’ to the startup options, correct??

THANKS!

[Member ArchiMark]

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Hi anticapitalista,

Yes, drive works, otherwise, I would not have seen the antiX live startup screen.

Thank you.

Mark

[Member Xecure]

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ArchiMark wrote:

{…}
Mounted boot device....
It started antiX boot process!
[…]
Now, display shows the antiX desktop!

Yeah!!!

Fantastic news. You were patient but got it to finally work.
Pay attention to the RAM it uses at boot. If you change to a minimal desktop-session it will reduce even more. Know that you will be limited, so probably no firefox or heavy browsers. Only Dillo and maybe seamonkey for web navigation.

ArchiMark wrote:

Now, a small window popped up on screen…..

No pinboard was in use.... the 'Default' pinboard has been selected. 
Use 'rox -p=Default' to turn it on in future.

I assume the message means I should add ‘rox -p=Default’ to the startup options, correct??

If you get to install it, you need to edit the desktop-session.conf file and increase the Startup delay time (to 4 or 5 seconds). This will solve the roxfiler error message.
But I think you will have to use a minimal desktop session (like min-icewm) to be able to save some RAM.

Good job persisting and insisting. At least now it boots.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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That rox message can be avoided via boot from device with a boot cheat deskdelay=10 (The number is in seconds)

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member ArchiMark]

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THANK YOU both for your help!

Greatly appreciate it!

Meanwhile, I decide to try booting with the Vaio Port Replicator connected to the laptop. Among other things, this adds another USB port.

Since this old laptop does not have built-in WiFi (has PC Card slot and built-in BT), I thought it would be good to put my TP-Link TL-WN823N USB WiFi device in so I can get online.

[ Once I install antiX to my hard drive, then I won’t need the USB flash drive inserted and get put the USB WiFi device in the built-in USB port. ]

When I boot up Vaio with the port replicator connected, I get a kernel panic and does not boot.

So, I assume I need to change ‘from=all’ to something like ‘from=cd, usb’ so that it does not try to boot from the port replicator.

I just tried using ‘from=cd, usb’, but I get error messages:

Possibly unknown or misspelled boot codes:
(don't take this too seriously)
       usb

Loading hardware specific modules ...
Scan cd, devices. Look for boot file(s) antiX/linuxfs
Retry for 20 seconds ...................................

Fatal Error
No cd, devices found

p=power off
    r=reboot
Select p or r then press <enter>

Is there a way to specify boot code to just look for cd and USB port, without including the port replicator?

If not, I will just go ahead and install antiX to hard drive and then I can use the built-in USB port for the USB WiFi device.

Thanks.

[Member Xecure]

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ArchiMark wrote:

Meanwhile, I decide to try booting with the Vaio Port Replicator connected to the laptop.

Is this connected to the USB port or to something else?
I have seen the use of
acpi=off
boot parameter for things connected to other devices, so that they are ignored at boot, but I am not sure if this will help in your specific case.

Try it and, if it fails, try installing as you were initially planning and see if the installed antiX can boot to the system without kernel panic with the port replicator connected.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member ArchiMark]

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Port Replicator is not connected to the USB port. It connects to a separate ‘I/O port. Has a very flat (4mm thick) and wide (3cm) connector. Connector is split into 2 sections about 1.5cm wide.

Replicator has VGA port, USB port, LAN port, microphone, headphone, and tv antenna port.

Tried adding ‘acpi=off’ and it worked!

Vaio booted up to desktop!

🙂

Now trying to see if the port replicator with USB WiFi device is recognized by system.

Opened up Connman, but don’t see WiFi connection recognized.

Opened urxvt and did ‘ifconfig’, it sees eth0 and lo…..

$ lsusb

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 2357: 0109  TP-Link TL WN823N RTL8192EU

So, the USB WiFi device is recognized....then did:

$ dmesg | grep wifi
[ 38.984113] usb 2-1: rtl8xxxu: Loading firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192eu_nic.bin

$ iwconfig
wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:off/any
Mode: Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=off
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr:off
Power Management:on

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

# ip link
3. wlan0: <NO-CARRIER, BROADCAST, MULTICAST, DYNAMIC, UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN mode DORMANT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 98:48:27:68:c2:59 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff`

Any suggestion to bring up the WiFi?

Thanks!

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by ArchiMark. Reason: Added info about the USB WiFi device
• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by ArchiMark. Reason: Added additional WiFi info

[Member Xecure]

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Hi.
My guess is that the boot parameter completely disconnects all problematic devices and the cannot be recognized latter in the running system. So the acpi=off boot parameter doesn’t seem to help at all.
Try to install antiX first and try latter to boot it up with the Port Replicator.

My guess is that maybe new kernel versions no longer give support to these devices and the corresponding module isn’t included, so there will probably be kernel panics when booting with the replicator connected. Hopefully I am wrong and this is only an issue with the live experience.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

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