The best way to install Slackware Linux 10 is to use
the root/boot floppies combined with the rest of
Slackware on a USB flash drive.
Here is the procedure:
If you want to retain Windows,
download the FIPS utility
(from here)
to reduce the size of your
Windows (FAT16 or FAT32) partition. You will have to run that in MSDOS
so prepare an MSDOS boot floppy, put FIPS on it,
and boot from that floppy to run FIPS.
Download the Slackware boot and root floppies from the following locations,
also getting RAWRITE. You should then write the boot and root disk images
to floppies in an MSDOS command window.
Download the A and AP series minimally from
this directory. A utility such as the Windows program
WS_FTP95 can make doing so easier. Write these to a USB flash drive.
Boot from the boot floppy, proceeding through the root floppies
as directed.
Finally upon reaching the login prompt, log in as root.
No password is required.
Type fdisk /dev/hda and create your main Linux
partition, set the boot flag on that partition
and write the new partition table.
Then reboot.
Commands are as follows:
p = print list of partitions
n = create new partition
t = change partition type
w = write new partition table
a = set boot partition
x = edit
Reboot (control-alt-delete)
and boot from the floppies, and this time after logging in as root,
do the following.
Plug in the USB flash drive.
Type mkdir /usb.
Type mount /dev/sda1 /usb.
Finally run "setup", which is Slackware's self-explanatory
installation program.
My own Linux
partition of about 3.5 gigs. I also created
a Linux Swap partition of 500 megs.
I did a nearly full install in a 3.5 gig partition (0.5 gigs for swap)
leaving out Gnome, KDE, Emacs, and TeX,
and I had 2.3 gigs free afterwards.
2. Drivers
2.1. Video
The 560X has a Neomagic Corporation NM2160 MagicGraph 128X.
2.1.1. X Windows
X seems to find the NM2160 and recognize it -- it's not clear however
that there's any acceleration.
2.1.2. Framebuffer
The framebuffer driver neofb.c does not seem to work with the NM2160.
However the standard VESA driver works with it just fine
and is pretty fast.
The 560X is the original system that I created
FBUI
for, which is my in-kernel GUI.
It uses the VESA mode.
To set the VESA mode in LILO to get the
framebuffer console, set
the video mode in lilo.conf
as
vga=789
which is 24-bit RGB video.
Then, run lilo.
2.2. Sound
The sound chip is the CS4237b. To use it,
run alsaconf, which will search for a card and not find one.
When it asks you to perform an ISA search, say yes.
The cs4236 driver works.
There's no need to search all DMAs.
Alsaconf will configure the card for use, at which point mpg123 will work.
2.3. APM
The APM driver in older kernels e.g. 2.4 works fine.
The APM driver in kernel 2.6.9
bombs during startup.
The 560X is too old to support ACPI.
2.4. Hard drive
I upgraded my 560X with a 40 gig Fujitsu drive. Linux handles it just fine
and can see the entire thing. DOS can only see the first
6 gigs or so. You should upgrade the BIOS to the final version in order to see
the 6 gigs.
Win98 can see all 40 gigs, but often bombs when
trying to write beyond the 6 gig threshold.
2.5. USB
Flash works like a charm. Haven't tried printing.
2.6. Printing via lp0
Catting a file to lp0 is the method I have always used
for printing. It requires of course connecting the parallel
cable.
3. Performance
3.1. Video
3.1.1. X Windows
X is reasonably fast in and of itself.
However it has the potential to use a lot of RAM,
and for that reason you should upgrade to the full 96MB of RAM.
Even upgraded to the maximum RAM and fast hard drive,
big bloated browsers like Firefox or Mozilla are still slow.
The best choice for web browsing is Konqueror.
OpenOffice and GIMP are not super speedy but are perfectly usable.
3.1.2. Framebuffer
My FBUI
in-kernel GUI is very fast in VESA mode.
One oddity of the video subsystem for this system
is that VESA memory reads take much longer
than writes, so that scrolling in not superfast.
3.1.3. Movies
Small movies play well using Xine.
The computer is too old to play Divx-encoded films.
3.2. Hard drive
Performance of my 40GB Fujitsu hard drive is:
From hdparm -T:
/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 160 MB in 2.02 seconds = 79.22 MB/sec
hdparm -t:
/dev/hda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 46 MB in 3.00 seconds = 15.33 MB/sec
It's always good to put these in your /etc/rc.d/rc.0 :
/usr/sbin/hdparm -f /dev/hda [flush the hard drive cache]
/usr/sbin/hdparm -S 1 /dev/hda [get it to spin down ASAP]
3.3. Processor
Running the BYTE drystone 2 without register variables,
which is at http://www.anime.net/~goemon/benchmarks.html, I get:
TEST BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 without register variables 22366.3 303330.6 13.6
Arithmetic Test (type = double) 2541.7 40989.2 16.1
Arithmetic Test (type = float) 40977.8 lps (10 secs, 6 samples)
Arithmetic Test (type = long) 36037.0 lps (10 secs, 6 samples)
Recursion Test--Tower of Hanoi 6228.4 lps (10 secs, 6 samples)
4. Manual
You've been searching for the hardware maintenance manual,
and here it is:
Link.
If that link is dead, search google for 560Xhmm.pdf.
