Re: IRQ Conflicts ?

[Al Stone <ahs3@fc.hp.com>]

Um, actually, I've been running 2.4 kernels on several
laptops over the last year, with no problems other than
devices that aren't supported yet (winmodems, specifically).
In general, everything else worked fine -- including APM,
USB, and PCMCIA.  Some folks claim to be using IrDA with
no problems on these same machines but it's not something
I've tried.

The laptops I've used are all HP ones (I *do* work for HP,
after all :-).  The following are all running 2.4.10 kernels,
with PCMCIA, using Debian testing:

   -- HP Omnibook 500
   -- HP Omnibook 6000

I've also got an HP Omnibook 4150 running the latest Red Hat
(I think it's 2.4.6, maybe 7).

Sorry if this sounds like an advertisement; it's not meant
to.  Just wanted to clarify that 2.4 Linux on Laptops is
*not* an oxymoron....

Klaas Gadeyne wrote:

> > Erik, would you perhaps explain therefore to me why almost 60% of the
> > hardware in my laptop ceases to function if I run a 2.4 kernel, but work
> > flawlessly with a 2.2 kernel (2.2.20 basline debian is my currently
> > version).
>
> This might be an interesting point!  Me neither, I've never succeeded to
> run a 2.4 series kernel succesfully on a laptop (this is only my second
> one, so it is hard to generalize:-).
>
> Some more details for the interested readers :-)...
>
> My previous laptop was a Toshiba Satellite 1640CDT.  I tried several
> versions and configurations of the 2.4 series, but none of them ran
> smoothly on the hardware.  Always crashes, never found anything in the
> logs, never got a ksymoops :-(
>
> My new one is a Dell latitude C810.  I got _everything_ out of the 2.4.17
> kernel, until I stayed with the bare necessities, tried with or without
> apm, with or without acpi, but nothing worked out :-(.
>
> Even the event of plugging the laptop from battery to AC and vice versa
> got me a crash everytime, with all of the above configurations...
>
> Yesterday evening I decided to patch the good old 2.2.20 with ext3, and
> since then, no more problems...
>
> I know the information above is too succint to be able to diagnose the
> problem, but I've read through many of the kernel's Changelogs to figure
> out what could be the problem and never found anything that I presumed to
> be responsable for the "phantom"-crashes.
>
> I wonder whether there are people with the same (or contrasting :-)
> experiences with 2.4 kernels on their laptops.
>
> klaas


--
Ciao,
al
----------------------------
Al Stone
Linux Systems Operation
Hewlett-Packard Company
Phone:  970-898-0345
Telnet:     898-0345
Fax:    970-898-3804
E-mail: albert_stone@hp.com
----------------------------