386 project a success; well, sort of...

[Tony Hammitt]

So pygmy's filesystem is within the DOS partition?  UMSDOS?  How did you
boot it once the install finished?  Do you need the DOS at all?  It is
usually much safer to boot Linux from its native bootloader.

BTW, you can always change to another terminal by pressing ctrl-alt-F2
from which you can gracefully shutdown.  I hate to say it but you may
have toasted your filesystem image by hitting the power switch.  I
usually both install a bootloader like LILO or GRUB and make a boot
floppy.

The proper shutdown procedure is to log in as root and type
'shutdown -h now' (or -r to reboot).  Lots of steps have to be taken
to make sure that there are no programs with unsaved data and that
the OS is in a prepared state to shut down.  It's nothing at all like
DOS that you can just flip the power switch with.  For the most part,
I recommend getting a UPS for all Linux boxes.  (Get one with a handle
like Randy had, that was cool...)

Definately bring the machine to the next meeting.  I think that we're
all a little confused.

Regards,

Tony Hammitt

SFIKE at twa.com wrote:
> 
> After wrestling with my friends old 386 PC for a week trying to get Pygmy
> Linux to install and run on it, I finially got it to run last night, for awhile
> anyway....
> The box came with MSDOS 4.0 on it and I upgraded it to 5.0 from some 5 1/4"
> diskettes he supplied me with. I chose to have DOS shell to boot up as default.
> Then I formatted the hard drive to clear off any junk on there since I wasn't
> getting Pygmy Linux to load up and run during the first go around.
> This seemed to do the trick. I installed Pygmy Linux, the files extracted
> themselves onto the hard drive this time without a hich. (Last time I was
> getting "write errors"). I booted up Pygmy Linx and it was running smoothly
> (and lightning fast too!!). Then I made the mistake of trying out a
> modem terminal program icluded with Pygmy Linux called "minicom". Once I got
> in there, I couldn't figure out how to exit so I had to shut down the machine.
> Now when I boot back up, I get this error: "Non-system disk or disk error,
> replace and press any key when ready". I think the machine is somehow seeing
> Linux on the hard drive as a non system disk.
> To make matters worse, I don't have a DOS boot floppy either. I don't really
> know how to make one either.
> I am guessing since I chose to have DOS shell boot up on start up that maybe
> Linux is trying to boot up with it. Is this possible?I'm sure there is a
> proper shut down sequence for Linux, but I was planning on finding out for
> sure when I powered down, obviously I could not though.
>  I know most on this list are fairly advanced in Linux/Unix and will laugh
> and have a good time at my expense, but I am merely a hobbyist that really
> doesn't know what he's doing (obviously), so I would appreciate somebody
> pointing out where I went wrong. (Other than not making a DOS boot disk).
> Pygmy Linux was created to reside peacefully on a DOS or Windows partition,
> but it doesn't seem to be acting this way, unless I did something wrong
> myself.
>