Installing Slackware on a ThinkPad 750P

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This is a DRAFT document

I am writing this as I attempt installation.

Overview

I plan to make my 750P an SMB file and print server.

With this document, I plan to tell you how to install Slackware 10.1 on your 750.

The Steps

Booting and connecting to the network

Download the bare.i, install.1, install.2, and pcmcia Slackware floppies. Boot the 750 with the bare.i disk. The following line of parameters will suit our needs.

ramdisk floppy=thinkpad idebus=33 noacpi noscsi nousb nopci

(Is there anything else the 750 doesn't have?) Insert install.1 when it asks for the root disk. Continue with install.2 when prompted.

Login as root. If you have a 750 or 750P (and its grayscale screen), you can type "TERM=vt100" to get menus with higher contrast, but I think the color menus are readable even on the grayscale screen. Insert your NIC if not done already. Type pcmcia. Follow the instructions on the screen. Configure your card:

ifconfig eth0 $IPADDR broadcast $BCAST netmask $NETMASK

Then make sure you can route to the internet:

route add -net default gw $GTWAY netmask 0.0.0.0

Partitioning your disk

Follow section 4, Preparing the Disks, to partition, format, and mount your disk. Remember to ensure your /boot partition is in the first 1024 cylinders or 8GB. Use mke2fs to format them. Be sure to activate your swap partition using swapon. Compiles will take more memory than my 36MB could handle.

Here's what I did after partitioning:

mke2fs /dev/hda6
mke2fs -j /dev/hda8
mkswap /dev/hda7
swapon /dev/hda7
mkdir /mnt/gentoo
mount /dev/hda8 /mnt/gentoo
mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
mount /dev/hda6 /mnt/gentoo/boot

Your partition numbers will be different.