danleff

Good thought Dapper Dan! If you like Knoppix, you can always install it on the hard drive as well. This should give you an idea how it all works. I do think that wine will not run your win apps. without a hassle. Again, Codeweavers Crossover Office runs all the apps that you noted out of the box. I use it all the time. I think that it is worth the extra cash. You could also make a fat 32 partition on the system to use as a transfer partition for Windows and Linux, without bothering your NTFS filesystem. This way, you can store your important files on the partiton and have them available for both Linux and XP. You may want to look at Frank's Corner, to give you an idea of what Wine is and related issues. It can be found at this location; http://frankscorner.org/

These are the type of questions that prompt one to reply! The first question is, do you have any prior experience with Linux? My two cents; Your hardware looks OK, but you would want to check the Mandrake web site to check the hardware compatibility of your components. A little voice in the back of my head seems to remember some issues with this brand of laptop with Linux in general. However, the newer versions of the distros are getting much better at hardware detection. Laptops have always been a little more of a headache. Someone else correct me if I am wrong, Drivers; People think of Windows drivers. Linux uses the linux kernel to provide drivers, If the Mandrake site shows that your hardware is certified, then this step is ok. Otherwise, unless you have experience compiling a kernel, this may be a hassle. Your sound, DVD and processor should not be a problem. Check and make sure about the video card. Wine, the package that emulates (yes, I lknow linux geeks), at least in the binary fom that comes packaged with most distros should run the apps that you mentioned, with some effort. Codeweavers Office does a much better job "out of the box" so this is an added expense. Communicating with Win 200 should be OK, but, if the system is based on a NTFS filesystem, I believe that even the newer versions of Linux still are only effective at read-only of NTFS files. So, file transfers may be an issue. I have no experience with PHP and such, therfore, I will not comment. Of course, the one way to fnd out is to give it a try! I suggest searching google, specifically related to your system and Mandrake and see what experience others have had with your laptop. Often, you can find someone who has worked out any bugs and who are happy to share their experience with others.

OK, mine is installed. I had a thought. If the 8139too module does not work, trey the one just before that one, especially if you have an older Realtek card. For acpi, when you get the initial SuSE install login screen, scroll down to the manual install option. You will note that there is a cursor at the bottom. Type in the cursor area pci=acpi. See if that works. Then try the install, first loading the 8139too module. If this fails, try the Realtek one just before the 8139too one.

You may not have the actual module. The install should not need the parameters. However, I am having problems with the 9.0 install, as well, failing at the YAST panel "media error." Could be that the servers are overloaded. A good howto is located at http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/5/2003/08/3/71137. If I am able to install, I will let you know.

Let's start with the network card. I just looked at the SuSE 9.0 boot image file. What you most likely need to do is load the module for the realtek card, during the install process. It should be, I think, the 8139too module. Then the network setup process should be started. Make sure that DHCP is enabed as you go through the process. This should allow the network install to proceed, as long as you have the ISP addess and directory of a SuSE server. NTFS is only supported read only, if at all in SuSE 8.2. You may want to check out the 9.0 version boot image iso, which was just released. This may have better NTFS support. See the news section of this site for details. Distrowatch also has a howto section in their most recent newsletter for version 9.0, that may be of some help.

Lindows 4.0 has the 2.4.20 kernel. I bet you need a newer version. Lindows is not friendly when it comes to recompiling the kernel. Frankly, it is not an easy process for a newbie. It is not as easy as clicking in an "exe" file. I have tried various kernel re-compiles with varing results. Please let me ask (for support purposes), do you have a membership for Lindows, so you can access the support forums? They are very helpful on the member forums. For a newbie, and if your Lindows was not purchased, you may want to try another distro with a newer kernel version percompiled.

Well, I'm new at these readers as well. Just bought a jump drive and ran into some of the same issues. First, could you post what the line in your fstab is for the reader? I also notice that Fedora is using /mnt/cfcard at the mount point. If this is so, then try assuring that this is the mount point. So, make sure the mount point is /mnt/cfcard. Try typing in a konsole mkdir /mnt/cfcard (a space between mkdir and /mnt/cfcard). Then see if it is recognized. The mount point should be placed in the /mnt directory. The other thing is that multiple card readers are not well supported. So, if the cf card is the first port read on the card reader, you may be lucky.

I took a look at the Lindows forum. It seems that sata is not supported yet. Did you try a google search?

I just ran into this problem in Mandrake 9.2. This is what I did. First, find out what the device names are for your DVD and cdrom drives. You can go into etc/fstab and see what they are. If the deives are set up as master and slave on the same ide, then most likely they are hdc (master) and hdd (slave). If so; Go into etc/lilo and make sure the append line has; hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi Assure that there is a space between the hdc and hdd entries. Save the lilo file, run lilo in a terminal window and reboot. When you reboot, the hardware change manager will note a change and ask if you want to keep the changes. If you are sure that the entries are correct, accept the changes. Try to start K3b and see if the warning messages are gone, and if the K3b configure utility settings/configure/devices sees your drives as scsi devices. I sure there may be an easier way, but I am just trying out Mandrake 9.2.

I've been through this a few times myself. First, what exact distro of Linux do you have? RedHat, Mandrake... Secondly, most likely, Win XP was installed with the NTFS filesystem, which Linux has trouble with. Many laptops also have hidden partitions with bios information on them which complicates the process. Did you pre-format a partition in ext2, ext3 or fat32 for the installation BEFORE installing Linux? Or, did you try to use the partitioning tool during the install? Again, the NTFS issue. If this does not make you crazy, I found that one needs to burn the Linux ISO's with a burn speed of 8X or less, or the iso's may fail to burn properly. This could explain why the Knoppix CD's fail. Finally, I also found that it is wise to use the same CDRW drive that you burned the CD to do the install. There can be compatibility problems with different CDRW drives on different systems. So, if you burned the CD-R on one system and tried to install on the laptop CD drive, this could be a problem. If you did al the above, you may find that using a CDRW disk rather than a CD-R disk to burn the iso may make a difference. If you do have a fat32 or linux partition for the install, try doing the install and making a floppy boot disk at the end of the install, not using lilo. See if the boot floppy allows the system to boot properly. This will narrow down where the problem may be coming from.

Hello; The via-rhine driver should be iin the kernel, just not enabled. I have one of these in my Soyo motherboard. It depends on the version of the kernel that you are running and what distro that you are using. Could you tell us what Linux distro you are running? The other issue may be whether the nic card was set up when you installed Linux. You can try typing modprobe via-rhine as root user at a console and see if you get any error messages, or if the command prompt returns with no errors (this should mean that the driver was loaded). If not, you can re-compile the kernel, or update the kernel with this support. All the recent kernels have this driver available, but it may need to be activated with a kernel recompile.

I found this thread on LinuxQuestions.org regarding RedHat 9; Quote: OH yeah I forgot to add if you want the drive mounted at boot add the following line to your /etc/fstab file. Remember to be in root when you edit. /dev/hda2 /mnt/partition vfat defaults,umask=0000 0 0 if the drive is fat or fat32 and /dev/hda2 /mnt/partition ntfs auto, ro, umask =0222 0 0 if the drive is NTFS. Thats only if the partitions are windows drives!! Not ext2 or ext3 drives! These two options work fine on my system (RH9/XPpro). Remember to alter hda and partition names to suit your system! So, it seems that you can mount and read NTFS partitions with a RPM package that offers this support. See the thread at; http://linuxquestions.org/questions/history/85451 See if the partition can be written to, or copied from once the fstab is in place. You may have to use the file manager in superuser mode to do so. Again, I don't have ReHat on my system, but it is usuallly found in the start menu under "system".

Sounds like you have some good knowledge of Linux already! I will assume that you know where the fat32 partition is for your win xp partition. On most systems, it is at hda1. But be aware that on some systems, hda1 is reserved for a small utility partiition, such as on Compaq computers. If you are sure that hda1 is correct, then you can proceed. The following link will serve as a guide. I realize that RedHat may have a utility to do this, but this will give you some basics using the command line functions. You can make a new directory either with the file manager (assuming you have KDE in this case) or by using the command line. Assuming that you know where the fat 32 partiton is. http://www.digitalindigo.com/support/redhat/mount.html See if this helps first. If not let us know. If it does, post back what the results are and we will get it to automount on boot. My quick example on a fat 32 partition on hda1; 1.Go to a konsole (root or superuser) 2. type in mkdir /mnt/win32 3. then type mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/win32 4. Go to your file manager and navigate to the /mnt/win32 directory and enter it. Do you see your files? Reference: http://www.europe.redhat.com/documentation/mini-HOWTO/Partition/formating.php3#MOUNTING

Unfortunately, the SB Live series comes in a variety of models, some work and some do not. Some are Gateway based models, which are known not to work in Linux. The best thing to do is try to determine which model that you have, by looking for a sticker or stamp on the sound card that identifies the actual model number, then do a search on Goodle to see if it is supported. I have one that is probably not supported and win XP freezes when it is installed!

Generally speaking, Linux does not like NTFS partitions. Historically, even if you can access the partition in Linux, you are not able to read and write to the partition. If Win XP is on a NTFS partition, this is only supported if the kernel that comes with your RedHat version supports it. I do not know if this is the case with RedHat. Accessing Fat 32 partiitions is not difficult, nor is other Linux partitions, as long as you know where the partitions are. If RedHat did not auto set-up some of the links already, then we can guide you through this. Is the Win XP partition on a fat 32 or NTFS partition?

If I am reading the question correctly, is your internet cable connection through an ethernet card or USB modem? Support for a USB modem directly connected to Linux is still fairly new. I have only had success connecting an ethernet card to the modem and allowing the internet connection via the NIC card. On installation, you should have been asked questions about the network connection. If you have an ethernet card, then you should be able to use the control panel to set up the connection.

Wow, this is a little over my head! What I did do is a search on Google using Linux VAIO PCG-FXA59 and found issues with the ATI graphics, just as you noted. You may want to nose around to see if anyone found a fix. Laptops can be a challenge with Linux. The stats in you config file do look odd. You may need to configure X manually, but I forget how to do this (it has been a while). Any xfree86 gurus out there?

I can tell you that d-link should work without a hitch. I do know that in most distros, possibly Lindows, that this chip is usually available as a module. If this is a new install, and you don't mind doing it (it only takes 15 minutes to install), put the D-link card in, disable the onboard LAN in the bios, and reinstall Lindows (if you don't want to recompile the kernel) and your up! D-Link support is in the new 2.6.0 beta kernels, but I found some issues with using these new beta kernels in Lindows. They can also be had, if you are apt at using apt-get or synaptic, using the unstable tree (pun intended).

I think that redpointpete was trying to tell you that you need to see if the kernel module (the driver in Linux language) is available in the kernel that ships with Lindows. You do not mention what version of Lindows that you are using, but, I would suspect that you would need an updated kernel, such as 2.4.21 and build the support for the correct module, by recompiling the kernel. Have you tried searching the forums with your motherboard model to see if anyone else has posted the same issue? I do know that the other distros have limited or no support with the stock kernel for this ethernet chip. You may also want to take a look at the following Debian thread, since Lindows is a modified Debian distro; http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-user@lists.debian.org/msg57398.html

I would suggest posting the XFree86 config file, so the experts can help better. Also, what model Vaio is it? I have read about issues with Intel video on some Vaio laptops. Have you tried a screen of 1024X768? Also look at the specs for the monitor and see if the horiz. and vertical rates are correct. But it seems that you get some video & no error messages, where X won't start at all, and if it is not flickering, that the screen resolution may be the issue.

Excuse me if you have tried the following, but they are common errors; 1. Use Nero to burn the images. 2. Ar you just copying the iso's to the cd, or burning the image in Nero, under the file dropdown menu? 3. Is the bios set to boot from the CDR as the first boot option? 4. Are you using CDRW media or CDR? 5. You need to burn the image at a very low speed, such as 4X or 8X. Burining the image at higher speeds often results in bad burning of ISO images.

OK, this is where it gets tricky. It sounds like you uninstalled Mandrake, but this does not uninstall Lilo. Depending on how you got rid of Mandrake. The fixboot method did not work. Assuming that your hard disk did not just decide to go bad in the process, try this. Get the XP CD out again and try this fix; "Boot the XP CD and choose to install, when you get to the page, choose R. You can then type fix /mbr This is supposed to rewrite the MBR and put NT's bootloader back in." Borrowed from here. If this does not work, then we will try to save your data on the XP drive/partition. You might want to consider repairing the XP installation, as I assume you want to save XP?

This is a wireless PCMCIA card? If so, did you check to see if it is supported under RH9? What drivers from the factory? Linux drivers?

I assume that you uncommented the section in epson.conf usb /dev/usb/scanner0? Also, did you make sure that it should not be usb /dev/usbscanner0? Finally, what does the sane-find-scanner output give you?

Syntax error. It is not XF86config-4, it is XF86Config-4 a capital "C" in config.