> Hello, > > I have recently purchased a used Sony 505tr laptop. I am a regular > Slackware user, but I'd like to try out Debian on it. Can anybody give me > some tips? > > I have successfully managed to boot off of the official 2.2 cd, using > 'boot: linux ide1=0x180,0x386' which causes the Sony PCGA-CD51/A cdrom > drive to be mapped to /dev/hdc. > > In particular, I am somewhat confused about the "Configure Device Drivers" > and "Configure PCMCIA Support" sections. Do I actually need to do > anything there? If so, which ones should I select? I have the floppy > drive, the port replicator, the cdrom drive, and a Linksys ethernet card.
during the install you only need "Configure PCMCIA Support" if your installation depends on something PCMCIA or cardbus based. Examples are, 1) I have two laptops around here with no CDrom bay, for them I use a PCMCIA based CDrom; 2) it might be reasonable to do your install via FTP or NFS (esp from a well-provisioned local server) but your ethercard is likely to be a PCcard. As you get going, make sure to add the applicable modules for pcmcia support that match your kernel, and of course pcmcia-cs so you get the userland tools, and your cards should work fine. Anyways, you're able to get at the CD already, so you shouldn't need to use the drivers or pcmcia stuff. Mostly it's desktops that need the drivers section, having some SCSI adaptor based drives but booting up off IDE. > Are there any other issues I need to be aware of? Do you know what video card you have, it will be good to know as you install X parts. dselect is still as ugly as it ever was, I recommend installing a bare minimum, and the apt system, then using apt after you come up to install the rest. The only problem is knowing what you want to get, unless you force console-apt to install (as far as I know, you can only get console-apt aka capt, a curses interface for apt, from the woody tree). > Thanks, > Jeff Bradberry Enjoy, don't be afraid to ask us questions if you get stuck. * Heather Stern * star@ many places...
