danleff

Thanks for replying, Mel. I wondered about the sis chipsets. I hope that this PcChips board is better than the one I had a few years ago, all kinds of problems. I hope Rosalind has beeter luck. OK, I will say it...I don't think this is the best choice for a linux board. I hope Rosalind is able to get it going, or the seller will holds up to his/her promise of delivering a linux capable board, and I am proven wrong.

Yep. the mouse movement is fast...too fast. I don't have a USB, but my scroll mouse is fine. The nvidia drivers...you would have to re-install them for the 2.6.0 kernel, but I'm not sure that they are made yet for this kernel. I had to revert back to the NV driver in one of my installs as well. Of course, I'm not a gamer. What I noticed is a faster response time overall, especially at boot. Sound is now alsa built into this kernel and modifications need to be made in modules.conf for the alsa driver. KDE is more responsive, as well. Another quirk, the rpm kernels have no built in support for reiserfs! OK, here is the link promised for fedora core 1 and the kernel build; http://www.geocities.com/asimshankar/etc/linux/migrate26.html And for the sound card (yes, soundblaster) with alsa; http://fedora.artoo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58 In the first article, notice the USB changes in step 3; Quote: The names of some USB related modules have changed between 2.4 and 2.6. First, open /etc/modprobe.conf and replace occurrences of usb-uhci with uhci-hcd (this will probably be at one place, changing alias usb-controller1 usb-uhci to alias usb-controller1 uhci-hcd). Also, change all instances of mousedev to usbmouse and instances of keybdev to usbkbd. Now repeat the mousedev and keybdev replacements in /etc/rc.sysinit. And finally for KDE; http://kde-redhat.sourceforge.net/

OK, I will be honest...it's not easy! I did somethng that I ususally do not do. Got the kernel rpm's. Had to install module-init-tools from source. Updated modutils to the latest rpm available and installed 2.6.0. You have to make some hand written coorections to modules.conf and sysinit. When I get a chance, I will post some links. I would stay away from kernel 2.6.3 and 4, at least the rpm's. All I get is errors with X. No gui and X respawning too fast problems. I got to work on this. Apparently, XF86Config was written over and I reverted back to my backup copy, otherwise, I lost Fedora gui. Has something to do with the changes in kernel 2.6.3 and up with the mouse recognition. In terms of kde, the rpm's are available. You need to upgrade via the console, out of the kde environment. Some dependency errors - I needed to uninstall the devel. packages of arts and qt, then the upgrade went better. Upgraded Arts first, then qt, then kde. You can do it with yum, but this is still really untested. Apparently apt will work as well, but I did not try this. I elected to do the upgrade by hand. Downloaded the packages to a directory, cd into it and did rpm -Fvh * which upgraded what I already had installed. Then added packages with rpm -ivh (like the devel. packages and addons). At first, I got some lockups after the kernel upgrade, but this smoothed out after a couple of restarts. Once I get on my other system, I will post the links, which were very helpful. So, for the timid, I would wait for core 2!

Since you have no "real" working operating system to work with, which you can partition the drive with, yes, you can use SUSE to overwrite the current Mandrake install. Let me ask, did you install Mandrake, or did it come pre-installed, when you bought it? Reason that I ask, is Mandrake install disks have a very good partitioning tool that you can use. But, the question is, will Linux install at all? This looks like a PcChips mainboard and I find very little on it, related to Linux. However, the LAN card should work, but the AMR modem (if it has one installed) will not, at least, not easily. Hope you have DSL or Broadband! I would suggest trying a cd based distro of Linux first, to see if you can get a GUI. This board has a trident integrated video. If you have access to a cd burner, get a cd based distro like Mepis or Knoppix and see if it will run. It will run only from ram and the cd. If you get a gui, then this will tell you how difficult it will be to get Linux running on this system. If Mepis or Knoppix gives you the same problem, then you know what your in for. Also, there is a cd based version of SUSE, as well. Good that you have the SUSE cd set. What I was getting at is the ability to partition the disk easily, to wipe Mandrake. What version do you have as a boxed set? I have no experience with SIS chipset systems, but give us the link to the files and we can look at them.

Go with Core 1! I got it working with kernel 2.6.0 and kde 3.2.1. Hoooahh!!

Don't know about Slackware much, but try configuring the NIC using the natsemi module. Look at the following post; http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/14/2003/02/1/43437 From the thread; Quote: From what I have been able to locate quickly, the fa311 card should use the natsemi driver. Perhaps another module has attempted to load and locked the resources, or maybe from netconfig probes. Power off and retry without running netconfig. Use "lsmod" to view the loaded modules. After you receive the error message, use the command "dmesg" and look at the end of the listing and see if any errors are reported that might point to where the problem is. If all else fails, then shutdown X to just a console unload all modules and then attempt to load the natsemi module. If it still fails with the same message, then perhaps the kernel is attempting to do something with it. Review the dmesg output just after booting to console mode to see what the kernel reports.

How about giving a little more information on your system? Let us know what motherboard/system that you have and some indication of the hardware on the system. Monitor, video card and the like. Before doing an install of SUSE, make sure that your hardware supports it. This may be one of the problems why X will not start. If you wish, let us know what error messages that you are getting. If your sure, just go ahead and install SUSE and allow the hard drive to be overwritten. Do you have the suse disks, or are you plannng to install from the web/via ftp?

This is a good idea, creating a stand alone home directory. If for some reason you hose your install later on, you have the home directory intact to recover data or apps. that you have downloaded. From a previous post; Quote: This is one quirk that Mandrake's disk partitioning utility has. When you install Mandrake, at the boot prompt when the install cd loads, type in expert, then hit the enter key. This begins the expert install. Then when you reach the menu for disk partitioning, choose custom partitioning. This prevents Mandrake from automatically assigning root to a previously populated ext2 or ext3...partition. You can then assign your previously formatted partitions to root, home or whatever. By choosing expert install, you can assign the partiiton sizes and designations as you wish.

I just wrote one of my best posts and lost it in a segfault! Oh well, here we go again. You will get a variety of opinions on this from linux users. Mandrake has a great partition tool that you can use to auto allocate your remaining free disk space. In your case, if Windows is assigned to the first partition of the hard drive and the other NTFS partitons are just data partitions, you are in good shape. During the Mandrake install, you can choose to allow Mandrake to auto allocate your partitions, or you can manually set them. However, auto allocating with Mandrake's partitioning tool has some drawbacks. It will try to allocate root to the first linux partition that it finds. In your case, this is not an issue. You can choose to auto allocate free space only, which is fine. There is also an expert install mode that allows you more flexability to add or exclude packages and some features, as well as really manually partition the drive as you wish. When you get to the partitioning window during the install you will see the options. In terms of a bootloader...lwhen you choose lilo or grub as the bootloader, this is your bootloader. Mandrake will see the windows install and add a boot option for it in the lilo or grub boot menu. The contraversial part comes when choosing where to put the bootloader. I have always placed the bootloader in the MBR. Of course, then this becomes your permanent bootloader from this point on. Any OS or linux distro adeed after this must be aded to this bootloader's options, or, you allow the new distro's bootloader to take over. The trick here is if the new distro's bootloader will see all your other linux installs. Some yes, some no. You can also install the bootloader (lilo or grub) to a floppy. This way you can see how it goes and add it to the MBR when you are certain that you want to keep the distro. Installing to a floppy first leaves the MBR intact with your windows bootloader, when you boot from the hard drive only. I know that Dapper Dan uses grub attached to a /boot partition. He (or others) can comment on this. Most third party bootloaders are generally not linux friendly. If you have one of these installed, check their documentation. They generally cause all kinds of issues with linux installs and can trash the system. But there is really no need for them, since lilo or grub becomes your windows and linux bootloader. However, remember, once you do install lilo or grub to the MBR, any addtitional OS or linux distro added afterwards will need to be added to grub or lilo.

It looks like kernel 2.6.x is sata capable. You might want to try out Mandrake Community (Mandrake 10) or wait for Fedora Core 2 to become available. The other possibility is a cd based distro for now, to see if it works. Finally, take a look at distrowatch to see if a distro to your liking is available with the most recent 2.6.x kernel. http://www.distrowatch.com/

Sata hard drives are not supported in RedHat 9. For a detailed discussion, see the following link; http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/31/2003/12/2/123028

The best way to answer all these questions is to do some reading on the subject. Try the following; http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/HOWTO/RPM-HOWTO/ The following has a number of good Linux resources and howto's; http://www.linuxforum.com/linux-rpm/index.html And finally, an editorial; http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=article-rpm

Try the following; http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/getting-started-guide/s1-q-and-a-windows.html

I run Athlons exclusively, no problem! The only issue should be legagcy hardware that may be in the system, such as a sound card. But nothing ventured... If it runs from the cd, then it should be fine with a hard drive install.

Yea, up[censored] the bios should only be done to fix a problem or to update capability. I used to be an admin on a bios site. The biggest mistake people would make is to not follow the manufacturers recommendations on how to flash their board, or to turn off the system before the flash was finished. The second was flashing with the wrong bios flash file for their motherboard version. They would just pick the general motherboard model and not the exact version of their mobo. But adding usb boot capability is a plus. The unfortunate part is that standards are different bewteen manufatureres, so that you someties have to play with the boot sequence a little to get it right. USB-ZIP vs. USB-HDD and such. I have found this in Linux, where syslinx is picky about this when setting up the process. Good link to Morphix, thanks!

Quote: Quote: How about a usb key device... We've got USB devices working on three machines and they work great. Just click an icon to tell it what to do, and you're done in one second! I just wish there was a way to get a Ext3 or RieserFS file system on them instead of fat32. We use them to backup data on a daily basis, then run kompare to see if the original file and the one on the stick is the same size. Beats the shit out of taking 45 minutes backing up to floppies, which may or may not take the info you put on them. Boy, I got to agree with you there. I have yet to find a good program to adjust thumbnails and pics for my website. I tried Jalbum, but it is a bear to set up (java and such) and I would like to resize thimbs as well. I will be keeping an eye on this thread.

Can you provide the link to the driver page that you found? Make sure that the Northbridge and Southbridge numbers match the driver that you download. Consult the tables that viaarena (I assume this is where you found it) provides. Also, you have to make sure that you download the correct version for your distro, or consult the via driver manual. In terms of the NTFS filesystem, No dice. You need to use a fat32 partition to share the file, or burn it to a CD and transfer the file to Linux. There is no write support yet in these distros for NTFS yet. I have not ever had to do this, so I can't provide specific advice on how to do it.

From the specs/link that you provided; Quote: 15.0" XGA TFT LCD con 1024 × 768 risoluzione pixels, 16.7 milioni di colori Looks like 1024X768. Try this at 70 mhz and 16 million colors, unless you can find the exact mhz foir this resolution. So, it actually sounds like a monitor settings problem to me now. Are you manually editing the XF86Config file, or using the control panel to adjust the monitor settings? If the control panel, also try generic LCD for a monitor choice. When you try to invoke X, what error message(s) are you getting?

Acer Aspire 1355LC - Athlon XP-M - 15" TFT Manufacturer Warranty 1 year warranty Dimensions (WxDxH) 33.4 cm x 28.7 cm x 4.9 cm Weight 3.7 kg Processor AMD Athlon XP-M 2600+ Hard Drive 1 x 30 GB Networking Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet RAM 256 MB (installed) / 2 GB (max) - DDR SDRAM - PC2700 - 333 MHz Graphics Controller VIA ProSavage KN400 Audio Output Sound card Cache Memory 512 KB - L2 Cache Optical Storage CD-RW / DVD-ROM combo - integrated Display 15" TFT active matrix - 24-bit (16.7 million colours) Telecom Fax / modem - MDC - 56 Kbps Input Device Keyboard, touchpad, scroll button Battery Lithium Ion Average Run Time 2 hour(s) Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional Built-in Devices Stereo speakers System Type Notebook

I'm going to have to look this one up. No, there was no reason to copy the boot.ini file to the D: partition. In fact, this would not work, since I believe that boot.ini needs to be on the boot sector of the C: partition. Sounds like you trashed the MBR (Master Boot Record), which needs to reside at the beginning of the drive. Remember, you have one drive with 2 partitions. Did you allow a takeover of the total C: partition by Lycoris? In other words, did you tell Lycoris to use the total space on the C: partition? I don't run Lycoris, but during the install, it should have identified the C: partition as hda1?

A couple of possible issues. Explain the media that you are using to install Redhat or Mandrake. 1. Did you burn your own ISO's? If so, what speed did you burn the images at? Did you attempt to boot the cd from the same cdrw drive that it was burned from, or did you make the images from a different cdrw in another system? Most install failures like this are related to bad iso burns. You need to burn the iso's at a slow speed, such as 4X or 8X. 2. The savage video card is an issue with these laptops. If you are sure that you have good downloads and iso burns, you may want to consider a newer distro that may better support your hardware, such as Fedora. Mandrake seems to have difficulty with laptops, even the newer versions. Someone suggested Slackware 9.1 worked on their Aspire, so you may want to consider this. 3. Try a cd based distro to see if the system will run Linux from a cd. This gives you an idea if the hardware is supported. Try a NEW version of Knoppix, Mandrake Live cd or Mepis. If this works, you know that you should be able to install a distro. 4. Different distros will have varying support for laptops. Depends on the hardware in the system. Laptop installs can be a problem. For example, even if you get one installed, does it have support for your modem (if you are using one). It's always good to check the distro's site to see if your hardware is supported, before trying to install that particular distro. I did a quick search on your laptop and linux. The older distros have problems with various hardware components, such as the video being set up properly for the savage card. Consider these options and let us know what you have found, then we can assist with a solution.

Mel is correct. Windows will not see the Linux partitions, so this space will not be reported. It sees only the vfat or NTFS partitions that you have. I would be careful about using cfdisk. If you are trying to wipe the whole hard drive and mess with the hidden partition, then this is probably why the bios settings need to be reset. I am not 100% sure about your particular system, but in some HP and Compaq systems, the hidden partition holds some bios settings. I suggest using PartitionMagic to set your Linux partitions, or to delete them. Or, Mandrake's partitoning tool is also OK for this.

Take a look at the following; http://jaqque.sbih.org/kplug/apt-pinning.html

How about giving a little more information. Depending on what flavor of Linux you are using, it may work without adding drivers. Mandrake 9....Redhat 9...Fedora? For example, under this site's hardware compatibility list, it works under Manadrake 8.2. Mandrake's site also lists support for version 9.2.

SUSE should have placed icons on the desktop for the partitions that it detected, such as data1...data2.... When you click on a data icon, it should mount the cooresponding partition. Look in fstab and see what each data partition assignment is. you can then change the name of the icon to your choosing.