Kernel freezing at first boot of Potato

[Francois Fayard <fayard@ens.fr>]

Hi,

I've just bought a new laptop (Dell Inspiron 8100),
and I have problems installing Debian on it. It seems
that the kernel freeze at the first boot (The dbootstrap
installation runs well, but not the first boot). It seems
that there is a Problem with the PCMCIA controler (I have
a PCMCIA Ethernet card Xircon ethernet 10/100).

My PCMCIA controller is :
Texas Instrument PCI-4451 CardBus Controller

I strongly believe that the problem is due to this controller:
Debian Potato:
  Freeze of the kernel at the first boot of the OS after
  starting the PCMCIA service and inetd
SuSE 7.2:
  Freeze at PCMCIA hardware detection
Mandrake 8.0:
  Same as SuSE

But I've realized that Debian (hamm) and SuSE 6.3 don't have
any problem during installation.

I really want to get a new Debian on this system (Potato, Woody
or even Sid). Could you tell me where the problem can come from :
  - Kernel
  - Scripts starting the PCMCIA services
  - others...

Just want to tell you that I didn't install any modules in the kernel
during the base installation process. I just install from a set of CDROMS
for the time being.

Thanks for your help
Francois
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