Booting Puppys in Pentium M CPU Laptops

[wizard]

Pentium M CPUs were introduced in laptop computers in 2003. If you install Puppy on a Pentium M you will likely get a boot error message such as:

WARNING: PAE disabled. Use parameter 'forcepae' to enable at your own risk!

You may be able to fix the error by adding "forcepae" to the kernel line in the file: menu.lst
Use Geany editor to open: menu.lst

Here's a code example, just add forcepae to the end of the line:

Code: Select all

kernel /bionic32/vmlinuz psubdir=/bionic32 pmedia=atahd pfix=nocopy,fsck forcepae 

wizard

[rockedge]

Pentium M CPUs were introduced in laptop computers in 2003. If you install Puppy on a Pentium M you will likely get a boot error message such as:

WARNING: PAE disabled. Use parameter 'forcepae' to enable at your own risk!

You may be able to fix the error by adding "forcepae" to the kernel line in the file: menu.lst
Use Geany editor to open: menu.lst

Here's a code example, just add forcepae to the end of the line:

Code: Select all

kernel /bionic32/vmlinuz psubdir=/bionic32 pmedia=atahd pfix=nocopy,fsck forcepae 

wizard

I have to use forcepae on the IBM T-42, but like this:

Code: Select all

kernel /bionic32/vmlinuz psubdir=/bionic32 pmedia=atahd pfix=nocopy,fsck -- forcepae 

Note the prefix "--" added to the forcepae parameter.

[rcrsn51]

Are you sure that it's "--forcepae" WITHOUT a space and not "-- forcepae" WITH a space? The first one makes no sense as a kernel boot parameter.

The only parameter that makes sense in Puppy is wizard's "forcepae".

[rockedge]

Are you sure that it's "--forcepae" WITHOUT a space and not "-- forcepae" WITH a space? The first one makes no sense as a kernel boot parameter.

-- forcepae WITH a space.

[rcrsn51]

-- forcepae WITH a space.

So what happens if you remove the -- argument?

[rockedge]

So what happens if you remove the -- argument?

On the IBM T-42 if the -- argument is not added the forcepae is ignored. This 2004 laptop machine is only 32 bit, has no hard drive and no battery. Boots Tahr, Xenial and Bionic 32 bit variants but only with the -- forcepae argument and parameter. I think it uses an Intel Pentium M “Dothan” processor.

I compiled non-pae 32 bit kernels for this machine way back when. Now I only boot it to see if it will.

[wizard]

@rockedge
@rcrsn51

For comparison:

Thinkpad T41 Pentium M, Bionic32
forcepae = boots
-- forcepae = (space before forcepae) boots
--forcepae = (no space before forcepae) boot fails

wizard

[tosim]

@wizard Do I have to use the "-- forcepae" with my T43 when I finally get to (frugally) install Puppy?

[wizard]

@tosim

The T43 uses a pentium M, so yes. Just add: forcepae to the end of the kernel line in the menu.lst file.

wizard