TinyMe 2008.1 final - Grub, X, numlock

[NewCityVegas]

I downloaded the new 2008.1 release and did a hard disk install.

My Fujitsu A3400 (AMD Turion 64) notebook requires adding "acpi=ht irqpoll" to Linux boot parameters.

Existing HD partitions: WinXP, TinyMe remix (2008.0), CrunchBang, 64Studio

Here is part of my experience:

(1) Despite BIOS setup, Num-Lock was set to ON by default, so from my notebook I started typing r66t instead of root. At first I thought this was a joke (Route 66 is a famous California Highway) but it is likely just an oversight.

(2) TinyMe 2008.1 trashed my MBR GRUB bootloader. The existing CrunchBang GRUB bootloader was replaced by an old (obsolete) GRUB menu from 64studio. Entries from the old menu were not working.

I had to use a SuperGrubDisk CDROM to boot into TinyXS, update my /boot/grub/menu.lst to include the new TinyMe 2008.1, and copy that file over to the TinyMe 2008.1's /boot/grub/ directory.

There are also problems with accessing the CrunchBang Linux distro due to an apparent conflict between TinyMe's older GRUB version accessing the new ext3 "256 byte inodes" file systems created by newer versions of e2fsprogs.

(3) I can no longer get a GUI screen. I used CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE to restart my GUI session. Usually this just gets me back to a GUI login screen. However, this time instead I got dumped to a Linux command login screen. I logged in as root to execute TinyMe 2008.0's gdm-restart but I guess you are not using GDM anymore? Rebooting does not help. How do I get my GUI back?

BTW, thanks to the new dkms-madwifi available through Synaptic Package Manager, my troublesome Atheros wireless WPA-secure networking was simple - no ndiswrapper driver was needed. This was the easiest wireless networking install ever and that includes many Linux distros and Windows. On Ubuntu-based CrunchBang Linux, I gave up on getting my Atheros wireless networking going.

I'm sure once I get some of the kinks worked out, TinyMe 2008.1 will turn out, once again, to be my favorite "light but mighty" Linux distro.

[KDulcimer]

[quote author="NewCityVegas"]I downloaded the new 2008.1 release and did a hard disk install.

My Fujitsu A3400 (AMD Turion 64) notebook requires adding "acpi=ht irqpoll" to Linux boot parameters.

Existing HD partitions: WinXP, TinyMe remix (2008.0), CrunchBang, 64Studio

Here is part of my experience:

(1) Despite BIOS setup, Num-Lock was set to ON by default, so from my notebook I started typing r66t instead of root. At first I thought this was a joke (Route 66 is a famous California Highway) but it is likely just an oversight.
[/quote]

No, it's a bug-- just of the kind that never pops up until Final is released. <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_sad.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad" />

[quote author="NewCityVegas"]
(2) TinyMe 2008.1 trashed my MBR GRUB bootloader. The existing CrunchBang GRUB bootloader was replaced by an old (obsolete) GRUB menu from 64studio. Entries from the old menu were not working.
[/quote]

Are you sure you installed the TinyMe bootloader to the partition where you installed TinyMe?

[quote author="NewCityVegas"]
(3) I can no longer get a GUI screen. I used CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE to restart my GUI session. Usually this just gets me back to a GUI login screen. However, this time instead I got dumped to a Linux command login screen. I logged in as root to execute TinyMe 2008.0's gdm-restart but I guess you are not using GDM anymore? Rebooting does not help. How do I get my GUI back?
[/quote]

GDM was replaced by SLiM. SLiM was patched so that it would restart after Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, but the patch didn't work.

Run slim as root to get the login manager back. I don't understand why it doesn't come back up after reboot, though.

[NewCityVegas]

[quote author="KDulcimer"]GDM was replaced by SLiM. SLiM was patched so that it would restart after Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, but the patch didn't work.

Run slim as root to get the login manager back. I don't understand why it doesn't come back up after reboot, though.[/quote]

When I run slim I get the following message:

Quote:slim: Could not create lock file: /var/run/slim.lock

[KDulcimer]

Try running rm -f /var/run/slim.lock.

[NewCityVegas]

[quote author="KDulcimer"]Try running rm -f /var/run/slim.lock.[/quote]

I had already tried that but there was no such file. I decided to reinstall, this time using the simplest (default) GRUB entries (just TinyMe and Windows).

After reinstallation, the GRUB menu worked okay. Unfortunately, GUI problems did not go away.

My first HD boot started out uneventfully. I got the login screen and logged in as r66t, err, ... root.

I went into PCC to edit my bootloader. When I clicked on Modify and clicked on the Append line, I Immediately started seeing a continuous line of commas scrolling on the line. I exited PCC.

I then tried CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE again. Once again I only got a command line login screen. I waited for over a minute but no change. I logged in as root, did a "shutdown -h now". Unlike last time, however, when I restarted the notebook, I got both the TinyMe Grub menu and also a TinyMe GUI login screen.

I logged in as root, and again tried CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE. After logging in to root at the CLI login screen, I type "slim". I did not get the GUI login screen. Instead I got a black screen with the GUI "x". I waited a while to see if it would then go to the login screen - answer: no. I did another CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE at the blank screen. After a short delay I got the TinyMe desktop screen.

I then shutdown again. After rebooting, selecting TinyMe from the GRUB menu, I waited for the TinyMe login screen. It did not happen. Instead I got the blank screen with GUI "x" as described above.

I think I'll wait a few weeks for a bug fix update to TinyMe 2008.1 that will hopefully work better for my Fujitsu notebook. In the meantime, I am still quite pleased with my remix of TinyMe 2008.0 I am going to remove the ndiswrapper stuff from the 2008.0's wireless stuff and see if 2008.1's easy dkms-madwifi configuration will work with my troublesome Atheros-based WPA networking on my notebook.