Installing Arch on a Toshiba C660-21Q.

[lxrdrolo]

I recently bought an old Toshiba Satellite C660-21Q originally running Win7 for cheap with the hopes of installing Arch Linux on it. Now that I have the laptop, I have realized that it is running a Phoenix 'SecureCore Tiano' bios, this bios is so old it has no mention of secure boot, legacy boot, uefi, csm nor editing boot parameters. I've flashed the latest Arch ISO onto my usb, both using Ventoy and DD. Using DD: booting into the USB flashes the screen really quickly with a line saying 'LINUXISO' and I can't really read the rest. Using Ventoy: It just hangs on VTloading... I have left it on VTloading for upwards of 20 minutes to no result.

Any help, any ideas are appreciated. Surely there's a way for this ol' laptop to run Arch.

 

[Brickwizard]

Welcome,
a known problem machine that looks like its been thrown together for a price from a parts bin,
check the CPU there were a plethora of different ones used some 32 bit some 64 bit, check the amount of ram, it only came with 2gb as standard.
Most people have had success with Debian/Ubuntu distributions on the 64 bit version, 32 bit is a different problem as support is coming to an end.

 

[lxrdrolo]

Welcome,
a known problem machine that looks like its been thrown together for a price from a parts bin,
check the CPU there were a plethora of different ones used some 32 bit some 64 bit, check the amount of ram, it only came with 2gb as standard.
Most people have had success with Debian/Ubuntu distributions on the 64 bit version, 32 bit is a different problem as support is coming to an end.

Hey, thanks! The CPU on this machine is a Intel Pentium P6100 2GHz. 6144MB of memory.

 

[Brickwizard]

P6100 2GHz.

First the better news, that is a 64 bit CPU, the bad news is it only a slightly upgraded P4 with early integrated graphics, it wont be fast by any modern standards, but ok for general home computing. as was made around Q2 2009 I would stick to lighter builds

 

[Brickwizard]

Just to add, if this machine has a SSD instead of the original HDD you will need to change it to UEFI not legacy or the bootloader won't see it

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I've flashed the latest Arch ISO onto my usb, both using Ventoy and DD.

If you're flashing the USB on Windows rufus may be better option because it lets you set parameters for setting up BIOS+MBR USB.

Phoenix 'SecureCore Tiano' bios, this bios is so old it has no mention of secure boot, legacy boot, uefi, csm nor editing boot parameters.

So nothing needs to be done in BIOS, it's BIOS not UEFI, all you need is non UEFI USB setup.

Using DD: booting into the USB flashes the screen really quickly with a line saying 'LINUXISO' and I can't really read the rest.

Maybe it further says "press any key to boot from media", make sure you press some keys as soon and boot loader starts.
It's possible your BIOS expects specific key press, try booting several times to read and see what it says to press.

Also see if your BIOS has key press for boot menu and then run USB from boot menu.

 

[lxrdrolo]

Hi all, thanks for replies
The machine has a HDD in, I only have my main machine available which is running CachyOS so I dont have Rufus available. I've tried pressing just about every key during the boot process to no avail.

However, I've determined that the USB I was booting from is not working properly in some way, I couldn't boot into arch on my main machine from it but I could the moment I used a different installation medium. I also remembered that I've had issues with this said USB in the past and had to use another.

I'm at an event at the moment so I can't try using the other drive to boot from, but will when I'm home.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Check if your flash drive has a "dos" and not a "gpt" partition table as your bios will probably not be able to handle a "gpt" partition. It probably does since you dd it but better to check it as well.

 

[Brickwizard]

I only have my main machine available which is running CachyOS

Catchy is arch based so this should work for you

Arch Linux - Package Search

archlinux.org

edit found a better package