Re: Debian 2.[01] -- Only rudimentary support for Laptops?
>Maybe the subject is a bit harsh, but currently users trying to
>install Debian on a Notebook face more problems than users installing
>it on a desktop computer. Compared with other Linux distributions
>Debian fails to install on some Notebooks (for example IBM Thinkpad
>770) or requires handcrafted boot disks. All things that could be done
>independent of any release goal:
>
>- Provide a useful notebook-kernel-image and pcmcia-modules package.
> It's fine that for most desktop configurations the user does not
> have to recompile the kernel. Unfortunately that's not the case for
I have an IBM ThinkPad 380XD. I have found that 2.0.x kernels just don't
work properly, my machine will crash or shutdown during boot. I believe that
the best thing that can be done to support laptops is to create boot disks
with 2.1.125 kernels. 2.1.125 works well on my laptop in every way and has
fixed the problems with RAM disks that older 2.1.x kernels had.
Another thing that is needed is support for installing from SLIP or PLIP. I
believe that the ThinkPad 600 series has a PCMCIA floppy drive, PCMCIA floppy
drives apparently do not work with Linux and I don't expect them to be
supported for a while. It's possible to boot up from a PCMCIA floppy as the
contents of the RAM disk are loaded using BIOS calls in real mode. In
protected mode the floppy can't be accessed. To make it reasonably possible
to install Linux on a machine with PCMCIA floppy and PCMCIA CD-ROM the best
solution will be to allow installing the base files from SLIP or Zmodem
(should only take 10-15 minutes at 115200bps). Once the base files are
installed it shouldn't be difficult to setup a PCMCIA CD-ROM or Ethernet
device to install the rest.
To install on my laptop I got a 40meg archive of a working system, split it
up into 1.44meg chunks and copied it on a floppy at a time... I spent ~12
hours installing Linux on this machine.
--
I'll be in Denver from 30 Oct 1998 to 7 Nov 1998 (or maybe a few days longer).
I'll be in London from ~9 Nov 1998. I'd like to meet any Linux users or
users groups in these places at these times.
I plan to work in London for 3 - 6 months...
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