Inspiron 8100 Woes
Hi all,
I've been trying, on and off, to get a working debian install on my Dell
Inspiron 8100 laptop. I can generally get a working install, but I lack the
necessary clue to make it work just right. I wondered, then, if there was
any chance of a little guidance...
My first problem is PCMCIA. To avoid the machine locking up completely
during boot, I need to add the line "exclude ports 0x800-0x8ff" (or
similar, I'm not 100% sure now..) to /etc/pcmcia/config.opts -- am I
confused, or is this going to stop PCMCIA working at a later date? If it
is, is there anything else I can do to get around this problem?
My other problem is with the nvidia drivers - I'm still not particularly
confident about compiling kernels and/or modules[1], and all the docs I've
found for the nvidia drivers seem to assume the reader is :-( If anyone
has any fairly straightforward instructions for fixing them, or has a
simple[2] explanation of what I need to achieve, I'd be most grateful.
I keep going back to windows on this machine - my one last windows box,
after debianising the rest of my network - but I keep getting hacked off
with Windows crashing all the time, and not behaving sensibly.
To clarify, the machine is almost identical to that described at
http://www.theonline.org/linux/vostok.phtml , except with half the size
disk, a CD drive instead of DVD, and a mere 866MHz CPU. And I have no
intention of dual booting - for various reasons, I've never really seen
the point...
I get the feeling there were other problems, but I think each of them is
surmountable if I can just get these two issues cleared up. Then I just
need to play with ALSA to support my soundcard... (Creative Extigy, USB)
Thanks in advance!
[1]Kernels compiled: 1.
Kernels that booted: 1.
Kernels that had network support: 0. Doh. Add in the fact I was doing this
remotely, and perhaps you see why I'm so very wary about such things....
[2] It doesn't necessarily have to assume no prior knowledge or
intelligence, but it would be nice if it didn't assume I hack kernels in
my sleep ;-)
--
James Green || jkg[at]ox[dot]compsoc[dot]net
This sig brought to you by huggietag, the letter D and the number 20
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