Vector Linux 6.0 Light LIVE Feedback

[nightflier]

Please tell us about your experiences with this release.

[Pita]

Scrolling will only work when booted with probe/autoprobe.

Booting otherwise I am as well unable to set screen resolution correctly even when
correct changes are made in xorg.conf. It stays at "1024x768" even when set to
"1280x1024"

How much memory is needed to for the 'toram' cheat code? I have 750 K and
 it is apparently not enough.

To get sound I have to do rc.alsa restart first. Otherwise alsamixer is empty except for
capture.

When trying to setup printing with vasm browser crashes on first try, however, not on second one.

[newt]

pita, I just tried the 'toram' option in both 'autoprobe' and 'vga=normal' modes.  It required approximately 915mb for autoprobe and 865 for tui. I guess 750mb may be just under the cusp.

[GrannyGeek]

Scrolling will only work when booted with probe/autoprobe.

Booting otherwise I am as well unable to set screen resolution correctly even when
correct changes are made in xorg.conf. It stays at "1024x768" even when set to
"1280x1024"

I couldn't get my scroll wheel to work on two of three computers. It did work "out of the box" with the other computer--I couldn't find a possible explanation. I didn't try probe or autoprobe.

I couldn't get 1280x1024 on the computer where that's my monitor's resolution. It always displayed 1024x768. On my 1600x1200 monitor the correct resolution came up.

Since I would be using a LiveCD only when traveling and using someone else's computer (and I rarely travel), I didn't try setting up a printer.

I thought the performance was pretty good for something running off a CD.
--GrannyGeek

[admars]

I'm currently trying the Light live version in a VirtualBox OSE, mounting the iso in the virtual cd drive.

So far everything is working fine, good work.

[Pita]

Tried to install on an old laptop with 64 mb ram and clock speed of 266 Mhz.
It hangs when it comes to 'Setting up apm' I think.
On this machine I have installed the latest version of DSL and the kids can even
access the Internet with Dillo. Firefox is out naturally.
I would have liked to see VL on it.

[nightflier]

Pita, you may want to try the "command line, vga=normal" option, press Tab to edit it, and add apm=off and/or acpi=off and see if it makes any difference.

However, for hard drive installation, I would recommend using the installable version of Light. De-select IceWM and customizations, and follow the instructions in the welcome document for turning off desktop icons and wallpapers.

[Pita]

The cheatcode is noapm, noacpi.

With this options it passes now and gets hung an 'Setting up localhost'.
Before that on the network then I removed the ethcard.

Our Internet connection is at the moment very erratic. It is stop and go and when it it goes
barely over 25 kb/sec.   If its is back to normal hopefully, I give another try.

[Daniel]

I extracted the contents of the LIVE iso to a usb stick and tried to boot off of it but it didn't work. I am trying to run LIVE off of the usb stick just like I would off of a cd. What am I missing? I saw something that mentioned formatting the usb stick as FAT32 but is that necessary for booting live? At the moment, my usb stick is formatted with the factory default of vfat.

[hulgar1]

First, thanks for the effort put into this LIVE version - I've always wanted to try Vector but never got to it; availability of a Live CD made that painless for a Linux noob like me.  I've tried various distros, and love Puppy for its pure speed, but have always struggled getting wireless to work so I'm always looking for a better alternative.

  I just tried Vector Live Light on a netbook (eeePC 701) and it allowed me to readily configure the wireless without jumping through any hoops. Some of the distros capable of doing this typically run very slowly, but not Vector.  Excellent Start !

  I enjoyed Puppy's ability to easily install it to a USB stick and just carry that with me which has been a top seller for me; their installer essentially did all of the work and created that bootable USB.
I tried to similarly set up a USB for this purpose (seemed to be a menu choice) in Vector, but it only listed the hard drive install/did not see the USB during the installation prompts.  I was able to mount this USB earlier and had see the files on it.  Can I create a bootable USB drive from the live CD that provides for persistent changes so I can keep my work on it as I use various borrowed PCs on my travels?

 Is there an easy way to do this ? I thought I was on to something when I sae the menu choice to create the USB, but when it didn't go well I was dead in the water. Again, I'm new to Linux in general and hopefully just missed something.  Apreciate any direction/links.

And again, great work - Thanks !

[uelsk8s]

Daniel, and Hulgar1,
There are a couple files in the boot directory on the livecd called bootinst.sh and bootinst.bat
after you copy the files to the usb drive, open a root terminal and type ./bootinst.sh
follow the prompts and you should have a bootable usb drive.
the bootinst.bat does the same only from windows

[Daniel]

Thanks, I saw that file but I wasn't exactly sure what it would do. Can the usb stick be easily restored to its original state after making it bootable with bootinst? I've looked at bootinst before and saw something about the mbr. Does that just create a mbr file on the usb stick?

Just noticed the liloinst script. The comments in it at the top say that the bootinst script is only for FAT filesystems while the liloinst script should work everywhere. Is liloinst better?

[Pita]

I finally have again an Internet connection after it was
practically out for 2 weeks. So I tried again to install the
live CD on that old laptop with 64 Mb RAM and a speed of 266 MHtz.
Using the cheatcodes of noapm and noapci it now hangs at "Setting up basic network"
May be this lappy ist just too old for something bigger then DSL.

[M0E-lnx]

@Daniel
I just caught this thread, sorry if I'm too late.

IIRC, the USB drive has to be formatted as FAT32 for you to be able to boot it.
the MBR is the first 512 sectors of the drive. This is not accessible at the OS level, so it makes no difference whats so ever after the OS is booted.  Only important to the BIOS.
HTH

[newt]

...tried again to install the live CD...

It may not be possible given your bandwidth but I would think you would have better luck using the non-live version with the ncurses/old-style installer. Of course, as you've already stated, maybe your laptop is just not a good match for VL Light 6.