[Novalug] EeMachine mini tower EL1200-05w anyone ever put linux on one?

Igor Birman igor_birman@yahoo.com
Sat Jul 28 23:25:49 EDT 2012


If Linux has trouble with the on-board graphics, you could try to put in a video card, you should be able to find one pretty cheaply..  Most manufacturers will send a set of windows install disks if you ask, but I haven't tried that with Walmart..

Igor




________________________________
 From: Bonnie Dalzell <bdalzell@qis.net>
To: NOVALUG <novalug@calypso.tux.org> 
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2012 10:57 PM
Subject: [Novalug] EeMachine mini tower EL1200-05w anyone ever put linux on one?
 
I have a friend who is interested in computers but just learning about 
them in detail who has 4 or 5 windows machines with OS problems - in 
some cases blue screen of death, but in the case of the eMachine 
el1200-05w it is failure of windoze to boot because of a  corrupt
hall.dll file for its windows xp home install.

This machine was made in 2008 and purchased from walmart and of course 
there is no actual windoze xp home install disk available for it.

so i thought - let us put linux on it.

so after i booted it with a mint live cd it seemed to run ok for 5 or 10 
minutes and then came up with a strange screen that looked like it was 
paved with tiny white bricks. (thas was a mint live xfce cd) so then i 
tried an ubuntu live cd - same result - ran ok for a while then the 
strange graphic mess up.

then i google about installing linux on that model of eMachine. several 
reports on the weird graphics, some discussion that maby the nvidia 
drivers were housed in flash memory and even a discussion from someone 
with windoze on the thing announcing that they also had the weird screen 
of white bricks effect.

i removed the harddrive and mounted it in a linux computer and got 
all her personal files and photos off and put the on a DVD for her.

i read about fixing this problem by using wine and expand to move a 
hal.dll file from a windows install disk to overwrite the damaged file on 
the system disk and tried that using a windows xp upgrade disk that I 
have.

did not work to get the thing to boot into windoze when I put the 
harddrive back into it.

grrrrrrrr

this was a $400 computer new from walmart but did not come with an 
official windoze xp install disk.

neither I nor my friend have a installable copy of windoze xp so it cannot 
be restored to window hood unless we find some one with a source disk.

i ran memtest from the linux cd. memory seems fine. my hardrive health 
feature on the linux computer I mounted it on says the harddrive is 
healthy.

so it appears the choices are
(0) use it as a paper weight

(1) pay a store a $99 service fee to get windoze working again - but then 
as she says she could have the same problem the next time some eletrical 
surge damages the hal.dll file (which according to the googleing I did is 
really common).

(2)trade the computer in as standing to one of our local ma and pa 
computer stores

(3) - the preferred solution - get linux working on it

(4) salvage the harddrive, cdrom drive, cables and memory and junk the 
rest. everything else seems to be one of thes integrated motherboards.

so if anyone had ever put linux successfully on one of these - i would 
like to hear from them with details including which flavor of linux was 
used.

so far my friend is overjoyed with her experience with linux which she is 
running from a live mint cd on one of her other computers. once she gets 
her important files onto a safe back up we are going to put linux on that 
computer. just in case repartioning, resizing the harddrive messes up the 
data currently on it.


thanks a lot for any help

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                        Bonnie Dalzell, MA
mail:PO box 9767 Baldwin, MD, USA 21013  |  EMAIL:bdalzell@qis.net
shipping address:5100 Hydes Rd 21082 (Hydes Post Office closed Jan 2012)
Freelance anatomist, vertebrate paleontologist, writer, illustrator, dog
breeder, computer nerd & iconoclast... Borzoi info at www.borzois.com.
HOME www.batw.net    ART bdalzellart.batw.net  BUSINESS www.boardingatwedge.com

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