How I got an old Thinkpad 570 running with Puppy
Posted: Tue 12 Dec 2017, 21:29
I inherited an old Thinkpad 570 (no letter in front of the number!), build-year 1999 with docking-station. Pentium II, 333Mhz, 6Gbyte HD. Installed is Windows 98 - first edition. The thing is looking good, everything is working so far (after inserting a new BIOS-battery) and it has a PCMCIA-slot. And I have a wireless-card for cardbus (that is PCMCIA). I did not get Windows accepting the card, so this was a case for Linux. Puppy-Linux, because soldered RAM is 64GB and I inserted another 128MB. That makes about 200GB RAM - not enough for a normal todays OS.
First choice was Puppy-linux 4.2 multiuser (i had some experience with that). That was running flawless from scratch, but it has real old apps. So ...
Next try was Puppy-Wary 5.5. Running flawless, but did not see my old IDE-harddisk - that kernel is compiled without "ata_piix"-driver. I wanted to install Puppy on the harddisk, so I had to find, if there is a version of Wary with this driver.
Next try: Wary 5.3: same result
Fourth try Puppy 4.3.1. same result.
Next try: "And Now for Something Completely Different" - Tiny-Linux Core Plus. A modern OS (Kernel 4. and running. But bad GUI, nothing I want to work with.
OK: if this old mashine is running with a modern OS, why don't I try:
5. Puppy Slacko 6.3. Starting as good as the other versions, sees my harddisk, but without sound. No soundcard except pc-speaker despite the loaded driver. Hmmm! I heard something about "Slacko with bad sound-support, so let's try ...
6. Puppy Tahr 6.05. Exact the same: no sound.
I explored the list of loaded modules, compared it with the same list in older Puppies: exact the same. I looked everywhere in blacklist-files, in init-files, alsa-files and so on. everything was good, but no sound.
One day later and several hours of research - here is the result and the reason of no sound:
https://wiki.debian.org/snd-cs46xx.
The kernel in Slacko 6.3 ist 3.14. and with this version there is no firmware in the "snd-cs46xx"-driver. I searched for this firmware, found it and stored it in /lib/firmware/cs46xx/. After the next start the sound-card appeared and sound is OK. This Thinkpad makes a very good sound, can supply any party with music without amplifier ....
Now I have a good running 18 year old computer, which is a little bit slow, but so am I - I'm retired, I have time ...
Spielmops[/url]
First choice was Puppy-linux 4.2 multiuser (i had some experience with that). That was running flawless from scratch, but it has real old apps. So ...
Next try was Puppy-Wary 5.5. Running flawless, but did not see my old IDE-harddisk - that kernel is compiled without "ata_piix"-driver. I wanted to install Puppy on the harddisk, so I had to find, if there is a version of Wary with this driver.
Next try: Wary 5.3: same result
Fourth try Puppy 4.3.1. same result.
Next try: "And Now for Something Completely Different" - Tiny-Linux Core Plus. A modern OS (Kernel 4. and running. But bad GUI, nothing I want to work with.
OK: if this old mashine is running with a modern OS, why don't I try:
5. Puppy Slacko 6.3. Starting as good as the other versions, sees my harddisk, but without sound. No soundcard except pc-speaker despite the loaded driver. Hmmm! I heard something about "Slacko with bad sound-support, so let's try ...
6. Puppy Tahr 6.05. Exact the same: no sound.
I explored the list of loaded modules, compared it with the same list in older Puppies: exact the same. I looked everywhere in blacklist-files, in init-files, alsa-files and so on. everything was good, but no sound.
One day later and several hours of research - here is the result and the reason of no sound:
https://wiki.debian.org/snd-cs46xx.
The kernel in Slacko 6.3 ist 3.14. and with this version there is no firmware in the "snd-cs46xx"-driver. I searched for this firmware, found it and stored it in /lib/firmware/cs46xx/. After the next start the sound-card appeared and sound is OK. This Thinkpad makes a very good sound, can supply any party with music without amplifier ....
Now I have a good running 18 year old computer, which is a little bit slow, but so am I - I'm retired, I have time ...
Spielmops[/url]