Re: easy laptop install?
On Sun, Feb 19, 2006 at 05:21:26AM +0000, Richard Lyons wrote:
> I know this list is committed to debian on laptops, but see quite a few
> references to debian derivatives, so perhaps this is not entirely OT.
>
> When I install on a desktop box, I can be reasonably sure to get most of
> a working system. Sound sometimes needs a tweak, but generally
> everything is at least useable. Not so on laptops. I have been using a
> couple of older thinkpads (560 and 600E) for some time, but never been
I'm running sarge on a 600E and I did get sound to work. The best
resource I could find is http://www.linux-laptop.net. That is where
I found the trick to get sound to work. Unfortunately, the serial port
has other issues (something about needing to enable the super i/o chip
in some non-standard way) and I haven't needed it enough yet to dig into that.
Many laptops have model-specific packages to support their hardware
quirks.
> able to get sound, modem, etc working, and sometimes when I close the
The modem is also an issue that I haven't had the motivation to pursue.
I'd be interested in solutions to this.
> lid, applications are frozen when I re-open it. I have now inherited
Unless you run a very recent kernel/distribution, suspend/resume is one
of those issues that is almost guaranteed not to work. I have disabled
it in both laptops (600E and Dell 8600).
> from my son this Dell Inspiron 8200. The same issues apply, and the
This is quite similar to the 8600. There are quite a few reports on
the above-referenced web site.
> system freezes if I close the lid. I am sure I could overcome many of
Just disable suspend/resume. Yes, not the best solution but a quick
one.
> these problems if I dedicate two or three days to each, but I don't have
> enough time for that. So the question is this:
That is the trade-off with linux on laptops, unfortunately...
> Are there distros that install on laptops with as much success as
> standard net-install does on a desktop? I know that some live cd's
I vaguely remember some project to simplify installations on laptops.
It went something like grouping all the drivers, laptop-specific
modules/packages, configurations etc... into menu-chosen entries
so that if you wanted to install on a, say, Dell 8600, you would
choose that from a menu and all the appropriate packages and
configuration files would be automatically loaded/installed.
Does anyone remember this and know the current status?
> overcome hardware issues better than the normal install. I originally
> arrived at debian via knoppix3.1, for example. I keep seeing ubuntu
> mentioned here. I have reached the point when I would settle for a
> derived system that worked even against my preference to keep all
> machines on debian.
>
> Alternatively/additionally, should I backtrack to a 2.4 kernel? udev
> seems to require a huge amount of tailoring of things that used to
> happen automatically, and again, I don't really have time to learn a
> whole new set of manual configurations -- in fact it seems to me like a
> step backwards to have to write a configuration for every device by hand
> (or perhaps I've misunderstood how udev works).
>
> Any guidance would be welcome.
My main laptop (the 8600) is still running woody with a 2.4 kernel,
although I'm slowly configuring sarge on a separate disk with a 2.6
kernel. This way, even though sarge is not quite there yet compared
to the massive configuration/customization I did on woody, I can
always swap to the known old system for what doesn't work on sarge yet.
Yes, it would be nice if a dist-upgrade worked flawlessly, but this
way, I'm safe.
A.
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