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. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
