Setting up Fedora 7 on a ex-Windows machine (Ottawa)

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

James wrote:
> Hello OLPC people!
> 
> I am working on a Snakes and Ladders game for the XO, to help young  
> children learn to count.  You can find my first draft of the game  
> here: <http://olpc-dev.fuelindustries.com/snakes_080116.zip>.
> 
> 
> I'm looking for help in getting Fedora 7 to run on a Sony Vaio PCG- 
> GRT796HP laptop that used to run Windows.  It's a Pentium 4, running  
> at 2.67 GHz, with 512 MB of RAM.  I've spent several hours trying  
> various approaches and distributions, without success.
> 
> This is my first excursion into Linux territory, and I'm still finding  
> my feet with Python.  I'm more at ease with development on Macintosh,  
> and have only scraped the surface of using the Terminal.  Please don't  
> hesitate to spoonfeed me in all things Linux and Python.
> 
> What I can do
> -------------
> I'd almost given up hope of getting the Vaio to run Fedora when I  
> tried using the XO LiveCD from <http://dev.laptop.org/pub/ 
> livebackupcd>.  This worked perfectly, which encourages me to believe  
> that the issue is not with the machine but with what I am doing to it.
> 
> Where I get stuck
> -----------------
> I've downloaded the F-7-i386-DVD.iso file from <http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/torrents//Fedora-7-i386.torrent 
>  >, and burnt it to a DVD-ROM. The initial menu screen appears.  If I  
> choose the default (graphic) installation, eventually the screen  
> starts to display vibrant pulsing graphics which I do not believe are  
> intended.  If I choose the text mode for installation, and step  
> through the various screens, I eventually run into a bug in the  
> installer script.
> 
> Rodney Smith entered a description of the bug into the RedHat bugbase  
> on 2007-07-08, but there seems to have been no movement on it since  
> then.  This leads me to believe that there must be an obvious  
> workaround, so others have just side-stepped the bug and moved on.
> 
> The original bug report was marked as NEEDINFO, so I supplied that  
> info on 2008-01-21.  You can read the complete report here:
> 
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=247399
> 
> What I'm hoping to do
> ---------------------
> My aim is to install a version of Linux as close to the XO version as  
> possible.  This will make it easier for me to get into the correct  
> mindset and best practices for developing for the XO.  I'm not married  
> to the idea of getting Fedora 7 to run if the line of least resistance  
> is to install something similar.
> 
> In his bug report, Rodney Smith notes that "System previously had fc5  
> that was installed using a dvd and the graphical interface without a  
> hitch and that ran fine."
> 
> I've looked for a downloadable version of Fedora Core 5 or 6 for a x86  
> machine, but all the links that I have found end up at the Get Fedora  
> page, which now limits itself to downloads of Fedora 7 and 8 <http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora 
>  >.
> 
> I get a similar bug when I try installing Fedora 8.  I've also tried  
> installing Ubuntu 6, but run into the graphic-interface-shows-vibrant- 
> pulsing-graphics issue.
>  >
> If it hadn't been for XO-LiveCD_080130.iso performing perfectly on the  
> machine, I'd have written off my Sony Vaio as being incompatible with  
> Linux.
> 
> 
> If anyone can help me get some version of Linux installed on the  
> machine, I'd be most grateful.  If there are any Python developers on  
> this list in the Ottawa area, I'd be interested to hear from them too.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> James
> 
> <http://nonlinear.openspark.com/>
> _______________________________________________
> Devel mailing list
> Devel at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
> 

There are two major Linux community distros now -- Fedora and Ubuntu. 
You've tried both of them and they've croaked. A couple of things you 
can try:

1. In general, more *recent* distros have a better shot at finding and 
dealing with unusual hardware than the older ones. So rather than 
dropping back to Fedora 5 or 6, you're better off trying to get 8 or 
pre-release 9 to work.

2. The major distros all have forums where people who are having 
problems like yours can get help.

3. When you boot a Fedora install DVD, you have an opportunity to do a 
media check to see if the download and burn was correct. If you didn't 
do that, do it now, and if you have a bad DVD, you'll need to download 
again, burn again, and media check again until you have a good one! I 
think you can do this with Ubuntu as well, but I haven't tried it recently.

4. If the graphic *installer* doesn't work, there is a text-based 
installer that might work. You'll have to set up your X and desktop 
later, but it's worth a try if the other things fail.

5. If you can't get Fedora or Ubuntu to work, there are other distros 
you can try. CentOS 5 and Debian "Etch" are solid, stable distros. They 
are probably carrying older packages than what you'd like in the ideal 
case, but if they work and the newer ones don't, you'll at least be up 
and running. Another alternative, but not for beginners, is Gentoo. 
That's what I run.