Absolutely right.
Failed every time I tried to install Linux
- Thread starter rayl
- Start date
I haven't tested it recently, but Emabuntis was also designed to revive old machines
If it comes down to having to find and install a driver that works with my video, I have already travelled that route and it's a little beyond what I can do (or care to) myself. I would need some real "hand holding" to install a driver.
I tried the "install driver route" at least to the point of trying to find a driver.
I looked on NVIDIA's site for a driver for GeForce 7100 (that's what the label on the PC says I have), but I didn't find anything for a 7100 -- there were things like "Series 7" and the like, but how would anyone know if that is the driver needed? In fact, the "7100" might not actually be the proper identifier for the GPU. The "7100" could be a identification dreamed up by the folks who produced the PC (FOXCONN) -- not HP.
What I'll probably do is NOT connect the Slimline to the network and instead, if I need something from the web, I'll get it using one of my other machines and do the transfer locally between the 2 machines using something like direct connection or USB or one of the many other methods.
I should probably give up on this older PC since I have so many others I need to tend to. I just took delivery of a new mini pc which I haven't yet powered up, and I have 2 other mini pc(s) that have Win11 and one of the latest Linux distros installed (like Ubuntu) in a dual boot configuration.
I'll try Slax first and report my progress.
Thanks for the advice.
Ray
In my previous post
NVIDIA drivers are available for that card BUT make sure you download the correct one [ Linux 32 bit, intel/AMD- Arm 32 bit - or 64 bit am 86 /intel 64bit]
as you have said its an old machine i will disregard Arm, so you just have to tell me is it 32 bit or 64 bit machine and i can tell you where to find the specific driver you need
NVIDIA drivers are available for that card BUT make sure you download the correct one [ Linux 32 bit, intel/AMD- Arm 32 bit - or 64 bit am 86 /intel 64bit]
as you have said its an old machine i will disregard Arm, so you just have to tell me is it 32 bit or 64 bit machine and i can tell you where to find the specific driver you need
The HP Pavilion Slimline s3620f PC I have is a 64bit machine.
Will you also be able to assist in the driver installation? and for which Distro are we talking?
BTW; I just ran Slax on the machine from DVD and I tried it from RAM -- both worked. (I even got to pick a screen resolution from a list of about 8 or 10)
The trouble is there is no dual boot capability with Slax.
Also, I was totally surprised that there was no way to install Slax from the live session I brought up from either ram or DVD!
The install procedure is quite different from "normal".
I think I'll steer clear of Slax.
Ray
You have to install grub2win for dual boot with windows.
Persistent changes
Slax, when booted from read-only media such as CD/DVD, stores all system changes in memory only. These changes are lost upon reboot. However, when Slax is booted from writable media like a USB drive, all changes made to the operating system are saved and restored on subsequent boots.
If the writable media uses a FAT filesystem (which is common for USB flash drives), Slax saves persistent changes using a series of files stored within subfolders of the /slax/changes/ directory on your boot device. These subfolders are named sequentially (e.g., /slax/changes/1/, /slax/changes/2/, etc.), each representing a different saved session.
Maximum size of persistent changes on FAT filesystem is 16GB by default, and can be increased by specifying boot parameter perchsize, for example perchsize=64GB. Once the maximum size is increased, the boot parameter does not need to be specified next time.
Storage format for changes on FAT filesystem uses DynFileFS. If the writable media uses a native Linux filesystem such as ext4, the subfolders will contain all modified files directly, without any size limitations.
Source:
Starting - Slax Linux
Slax is a modern, portable, small and fast Linux operating system.
www.slax.org
Thanks for the info. I'm going to try the driver install based on the help I'm getting from @Brickwizard.
If all goes well with the driver install, I should be able to have my dual boot capability on the HP Slimline like I have on my other mini PC(s), and it will be with current software for malware protection and the like.
Ray
I can't boot from USB, so does that mean I can't use the info you've provided above?
I can ONLY boot from DVD or HDD or SSD. My MB has 2 SATA interfaces on it, so I'm limited to those for booting.
I also have a PCIe adaptor for SATA 3 disks, but it doesn't support booting. It is where I have the 1 TB HDD.
Ray
OK, thanks.
@rayl :-
Boy, this one's a-runnin' and a-runnin', ain't it?
With respect to Slax, it's like Porteus (and to a lesser degree, Puppy); it's not now - and never was - intended for a normal, standard, "full" install.....which appears to be the only thing that many people understand. "If it's not on the main internal drive, how CAN it be 'installed'?"
Short answer is, it's not.....and yet it IS.
These are, quite literally, "portable" operating systems; built & designed to run from plugged-in external media. It's perfectly possible to "install" Slax to an internal drive, and to multi-boot it on the same machine as other OSs. I've done it myself, so I know it's possible.....but it's far simpler for someone like myself - with well over a decades-worth of 'tinkering' experience - than for someone like yourself. And there's no offence intended when I say this, believe me.
It's also not the kind of thing you can write a nice, easy-to-use point'n'click GUI for. There's often a number of 'hacks' involved that would take far longer to describe than they would to actually perform.....and, frankly, some of the concepts would be hard for noobs to get their heads round. After all, the general idea here on this forum is to help people to help themselves.....and that often involves distilling many operations down to the simplest concepts possible. Not everybody is technically-minded, although the majority of Linux users tend to come from the higher intelligence percentiles in society. And everybody has the right to at least decide for themselves whether they could live with Linux full-time.
Anyways. Now; with regard to a suitable Nvidia driver for the GeForce 7100. This is where things are a bit "murky". Either you're not giving us the correct information - and you have no reason to lie - OR you're the unfortunate owner of one of the biggest mysteries I've yet come across.
According to every online article I've found, the GeForce 7100 did exist.....but it was always sold as a PCIe card, the GeForce 7100 GS. One of these:-
Yet according to you, your PCIe slots are empty, and there's nothing in them...
Moving on to that series equivalent notebook (or 'mobile' versions) - the GeForce Go 7 series:-
.....we can clearly see that these started at the GeForce 7000M, and the very next model up was the GeForce 7150M. There is no mention of a GeForce 7100M.
Weird. But, this is not the end. The mystery deepens further.....
Some deep digging led me to this 20-yr old TechPowerUp! blog post from 2005. In this, Nvidia had apparently just announced details of an upcoming GeForce 7xxx-series of mGPUs.....including the GeForce 7100 mGPU.
It rather looks like this is what you probably have. But nowhere can I find any further mention of these boards with these integrated mGPUs. And I suspect you won't.....because almost certainly this comes under the heading of "made-under-licence", where the original manufacturer - in this case, Nvidia - disavows all knowledge of the items in question.....and pushes responsibility for the item onto whoever it was built FOR (in this case, HP).
And with this machine being the best part of 20 years old, you can be sure that HP have long since removed any details of the hardware from their database. Their typical 'cut-off' point is around the 10-11 yr mark.
In the fast-moving tech world, 20 years puts you at prehistoric, dinosaur-level.....
One thing you can say about Nvidia is they are at least consistent. Regardless of the product packaging & type, any given GPU model will be supported by the same drivers, irrespective of the way it's built, packaged & connected to the system!
So; trawling through Nvidia's dusty driver archives reveals the very last Linux driver to support the Curie-based, NV44B "7100" chip:-
However, due to its age, I'm extremely doubtful that any currently-supported, up-to-date OS would even allow this to install.....much less to actually run.
That, in a nutshell, is what I see as the current position with regard to this Nvidia GPU of yours.
Mike.
Boy, this one's a-runnin' and a-runnin', ain't it?
With respect to Slax, it's like Porteus (and to a lesser degree, Puppy); it's not now - and never was - intended for a normal, standard, "full" install.....which appears to be the only thing that many people understand. "If it's not on the main internal drive, how CAN it be 'installed'?"
Short answer is, it's not.....and yet it IS.
These are, quite literally, "portable" operating systems; built & designed to run from plugged-in external media. It's perfectly possible to "install" Slax to an internal drive, and to multi-boot it on the same machine as other OSs. I've done it myself, so I know it's possible.....but it's far simpler for someone like myself - with well over a decades-worth of 'tinkering' experience - than for someone like yourself. And there's no offence intended when I say this, believe me.
It's also not the kind of thing you can write a nice, easy-to-use point'n'click GUI for. There's often a number of 'hacks' involved that would take far longer to describe than they would to actually perform.....and, frankly, some of the concepts would be hard for noobs to get their heads round. After all, the general idea here on this forum is to help people to help themselves.....and that often involves distilling many operations down to the simplest concepts possible. Not everybody is technically-minded, although the majority of Linux users tend to come from the higher intelligence percentiles in society. And everybody has the right to at least decide for themselves whether they could live with Linux full-time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyways. Now; with regard to a suitable Nvidia driver for the GeForce 7100. This is where things are a bit "murky". Either you're not giving us the correct information - and you have no reason to lie - OR you're the unfortunate owner of one of the biggest mysteries I've yet come across.
According to every online article I've found, the GeForce 7100 did exist.....but it was always sold as a PCIe card, the GeForce 7100 GS. One of these:-
NVIDIA GeForce 7100 GS Specs
NVIDIA NV44B, 350 MHz, 4 Pixel Shaders, 3 Vertex Shaders, 4 TMUs, 2 ROPs, 128 MB DDR2, 266 MHz, 64 bit
www.techpowerup.com
Yet according to you, your PCIe slots are empty, and there's nothing in them...
Moving on to that series equivalent notebook (or 'mobile' versions) - the GeForce Go 7 series:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units#GeForce_Go_7_(Go_7xxx)_series
.....we can clearly see that these started at the GeForce 7000M, and the very next model up was the GeForce 7150M. There is no mention of a GeForce 7100M.
Weird. But, this is not the end. The mystery deepens further.....
Some deep digging led me to this 20-yr old TechPowerUp! blog post from 2005. In this, Nvidia had apparently just announced details of an upcoming GeForce 7xxx-series of mGPUs.....including the GeForce 7100 mGPU.
It rather looks like this is what you probably have. But nowhere can I find any further mention of these boards with these integrated mGPUs. And I suspect you won't.....because almost certainly this comes under the heading of "made-under-licence", where the original manufacturer - in this case, Nvidia - disavows all knowledge of the items in question.....and pushes responsibility for the item onto whoever it was built FOR (in this case, HP).
And with this machine being the best part of 20 years old, you can be sure that HP have long since removed any details of the hardware from their database. Their typical 'cut-off' point is around the 10-11 yr mark.
In the fast-moving tech world, 20 years puts you at prehistoric, dinosaur-level.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One thing you can say about Nvidia is they are at least consistent. Regardless of the product packaging & type, any given GPU model will be supported by the same drivers, irrespective of the way it's built, packaged & connected to the system!
So; trawling through Nvidia's dusty driver archives reveals the very last Linux driver to support the Curie-based, NV44B "7100" chip:-
Driver Details | NVIDIA
Download the <dd~LanguageName> <dd~Name> for <dd~OSName> systems. Released <dd~ReleaseDateTime>
www.nvidia.com
However, due to its age, I'm extremely doubtful that any currently-supported, up-to-date OS would even allow this to install.....much less to actually run.
That, in a nutshell, is what I see as the current position with regard to this Nvidia GPU of yours.
Mike.
Last edited:
Latest NVIDIA legacy drivers https://uk.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/304.137/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-304.137.run
Last edited:
Thanks Mike, for your effort in exploring the mystery.@rayl :-
Boy, this one's a-runnin' and a-runnin', ain't it?
With respect to Slax, it's like Porteus (and to a lesser degree, Puppy); it's not now - and never was - intended for a normal, standard, "full" install.....which appears to be the only thing that many people understand. "If it's not on the main internal drive, how CAN it be 'installed'?"
Short answer is, it's not.....and yet it IS.
These are, quite literally, "portable" operating systems; built & designed to run from plugged-in external media. It's perfectly possible to "install" Slax to an internal drive, and to multi-boot it on the same machine as other OSs. I've done it myself, so I know it's possible.....but it's far simpler for someone like myself - with well over a decades-worth of 'tinkering' experience - than for someone like yourself. And there's no offence intended when I say this, believe me.
It's also not the kind of thing you can write a nice, easy-to-use point'n'click GUI for. There's often a number of 'hacks' involved that would take far longer to describe than they would to actually perform.....and, frankly, some of the concepts would be hard for noobs to get their heads round. After all, the general idea here on this forum is to help people to help themselves.....and that often involves distilling many operations down to the simplest concepts possible. Not everybody is technically-minded, although the majority of Linux users tend to come from the higher intelligence percentiles in society. And everybody has the right to at least decide for themselves whether they could live with Linux full-time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyways. Now; with regard to a suitable Nvidia driver for the GeForce 7100. This is where things are not right, somehow. Either you're not giving us the correct information - and you have no reason to lie - OR you're the unfortunate owner of one of the biggest mysteries I've yet come across.
According to every online article I've found, the GeForce 7100 did exist.....but it was always sold as a PCIe card, the GeForce 7100 GS. One of these:-
NVIDIA GeForce 7100 GS Specs
NVIDIA NV44B, 350 MHz, 4 Pixel Shaders, 3 Vertex Shaders, 4 TMUs, 2 ROPs, 128 MB DDR2, 266 MHz, 64 bitwww.techpowerup.com
Yet according to you, your PCIe slots are empty, and there's nothing in them...
Moving on to that series equivalent notebook (or 'mobile' versions) - the GeForce Go 7 series:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units#GeForce_Go_7_(Go_7xxx)_series
.....we can clearly see that these started at the GeForce 7000M, and the very next model up was the GeForce 7150M. There is no mention of a GeForce 7100M.
Weird. But, this is not the end. The mystery deepens further.....
Some deep digging led me to this 20-yr old TechPowerUp! blog post from 2005. In this, Nvidia had apparently just announced details of an upcoming GeForce 7xxx-series of mGPUs.....including the GeForce 7100 mGPU.
It rather looks like this is what you probably have. But nowhere can I find any further mention of these boards with these integrated mGPUs. And I suspect you won't.....because almost certainly this comes under the heading of "made-under-licence", where the original manufacturer - in this case, Nvidia - disavows all knowledge of the items in question.....and pushes responsibility for the item onto whoever it was built FOR (in this case, HP).
And with this machine being the best part of 20 years old, you can be sure that HP have long since removed any details of the hardware from their database. Their typical 'cut-off' point is around the 10-11 yr mark.
In the fast-moving tech world, 20 years puts you at prehistoric, dinosaur-level.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One thing you can say about Nvidia is they are at least consistent. Regardless of the product packaging & type, any given GPU model will be supported by the same drivers, irrespective of the way it's built & connected to the system!
So; trawling through Nvidia's dusty driver archives reveals the very last Linux driver to support the Curie-based, NV44B "7100" chip:-
Driver Details | NVIDIA
Download the <dd~LanguageName> <dd~Name> for <dd~OSName> systems. Released <dd~ReleaseDateTime>www.nvidia.com
However, due to its age, I'm extremely doubtful that any currently-supported, up-to-date OS would even allow this to install.....much less to actually run.
That, in a nutshell, is what I see as the current position with regard to this Nvidia GPU of yours.
Mike.
I've decided to just keep the HP PC the way I currently have it with Win7 and Linux Mint 13 in a dual boot config.
I'll just not use any network connection since both OS(s) are so insecure. Any time I need something for either OS on the HP, I'll get it from one of my other machines running Win11. I'll just use a direct ethernet connection between the 2 machines for transferring what I got from the web to the HP.
Ray
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