Install on HP Pavilion DV6119US?

[Carl Fink <carl@finknetwork.com>]

I just purchased the above laptop.  It works fine with the preinstalled
Windows XP (Media Center edition), but installing Debian isn't going well.

First of all, Windows Disk Defragmenter find immovable files right in the
middle of the NTFS partition, making it hard to create a substantial ext3 or
other Linux-native one.

Secondly, when I try to resize the 65.5 GB NTFS partition at all, the Debian
Installer (Etch Beta 3) accepts my input (either 50% or 30 GB, or various
other numbers I tried), but then returns instantly to the previous screen
with the NTFS partition still sized at 65.5.  I am guessing that GNU parted
is failing in a way that the installer doesn't know how to report.

If I open the second VT (Alt-F2) and run parted, the system freezes and
requires power-off to restart.

Another data point: if I boot the current Knoppix CD, it runs fine, but
Knoppix can't even detect the hard drive.  It finds the CD as /dev/hda and
no other hard disk devices.

Any suggestions?  If it's something obvious I hate to bug the installer
team.

Thanks.
-- 
Carl Fink                                   nitpicking@nitpicking.com 

Read my blog at nitpickingblog.blogspot.com.  Reviews!  Observations!
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