RedHat Linux 6.0 on a Compaq Contura Aero

Table of Contents

Introduction

 This page contains a description of my experience installing RedHat Linux 6.0 on a Compaq Contura Aero Laptop. The Aero was one of the very early 486 subnotebooks, and was quite a nice machine in its time (Mine was made in 1994). The keyboard is small but not too cramped, and the screen is bright and legible, although quite small. One big advantage is the battery life, which can last up to 4 hours with power management. However, I mainly did this install just for fun, and because I can get a little life out of this machine as a Linux box, where it's mostly useless in the DOS/Windows world. You can feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the install (linux-related questions only please).

About the Aero

Here is a list of the my Aero's features (with upgrades indicated):

This is a list of the additional hardware I used in my installation:

Installing Linux

 To go about setting up Linux, I started with some blank floppy disks, DOS 6.22 installation disks (came with the computer), and a RedHat 6.0 CD from CheapBytes. I had already installed the 16 MB memory upgrade and the 1GB hard disk, which was blank. First, I booted up the computer with the PCMCIA floppy drive connected, and booted to a DOS system disk.

From here, I proceeded to format use DOS fdisk to create a partition for DOS/Windows 95 (about 300 MB for me). I had to reboot, and then I formatted the partition and installed DOS. I installed the Compaq PCMCIA software and then the driver disk for my Panasonic CD-ROM, and went ahead installing Windows 95 on that partition. Now I was ready to install RedHat Linux 6.0 in the remaining 700 MB.

By the way, I chose not to install the Compaq Aero setup and diagnostics software, which makes a 2MB partition used to access your BIOS and other stuff. I just keep those floppy disks handy, which lets me access the BIOS by booting from them in the PCMCIA floppy drive.

Now, I downloaded the files from Victor GV's page appropriate for Redhat 6.0 (I have a tar.gz copy here - thanks to Jeremy Elson), and put them on the hard disk of the Aero in a separate directory. One of the files is too big to fit on a floppy (initrd60.img). Use whatever means necessary to move it to your Aero (I used HJSplit for DOS by Henk Hagedoorn - a copy is located here).

Now, I was ready to install. I followed Victor's instructions, and booted to DOS with the Panasonic CD-ROM in the PCMCIA slot and the RedHat 6.0 disc loaded. I made sure I could read this disc in DOS, and then executed the following command from the directory containing the files from Victor's site (this is the same as executing the autoboot.bat file): 

loadlin bootnetk.60 initrd=initrd60.img
This put me right into the RedHat install program, and from there I thought I was ready to install. However, it seemed I was a bit premature, as I couldn't seem to get the setup program to recognize my PCMCIA CD-ROM (it is listed as compatible on David Hinds' PCMCIA in Linux page).

So, I didn't feel like playing around with this too much, and I moved to attempting a NFS install with my IBM Home and Away network card. This concerned me a bit, because I know that combination cards (modem/ethernet) like this one tend to be less supported in Linux, but I went ahead with it anyway. I booted into DOS, this time with the IBM PC Card in the slot. I ran the autoboot.bat file again, using the same files from Victor's site. This time, I chose NFS install. Luckily, I have access to a Linux desktop at work, so I used that machine to mount the RedHat CD. I added the appropriate commands to my /etc/exports file (see man exports and exportfs), did a exportfs -a, and continued with the install from the Aero. This time, things went swimmingly. At this point, I was able to mount the CD over NFS using the host machine's IP, and I continued the install from there.

I let Disk Druid make two partitions, the swap (about 40 MB) and the root (/, about 675 MB). I only installed the basics on the Aero, I just need emacs, X, latex, and cc/gcc. I let the RedHat setup install a couple of other things it wanted, and went ahead. For the X configuration, I made the RedHat setup skip all of the autoprobing steps, and took this XF86Config file from the Compaq Aero FAQ. I let the machine reboot, and presto, it came up as a working Linux box. Actually, one of the easier setups I've done in a while since there's no sound to deal with and the X configuration was provided for me. The startx command took me right into X with fvwm2 as the window manager, and I continued with some minor configuration from there.

I must say that the X performance on the machine is VERY slow. Running emacs is fine once it loads, but it takes forever to load. I did expect this on a slow 486, but I was hoping for a little more speed. I'm going to try to disable some daemons and perhaps get my kernel in shape, and then see how fast it is.

General Resources:

These pages were last modified on Saturday, April 15, 2000

Copyright © 2000 Matthew A. Smith. All rights reserved.