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installation problem on Acer aspire 5100

i am new to the forum. I have a problem installing linux redhat 9 on my laption which is Acer Aspire 5100 AMD Turion 64 x2 1.6GHz (800MHz /core)
ATI Radeon XPress 1100
120 GB PATA hdd
1 GB DDR2 ram.
I have tried to install Redhat 9 on my own , but the machice always freeze after the 1st cd, so please if you are able to get a solution let me know at this address bezgodo@yahoo.fr For all the est of the menbers of this forum , is it possible to install solaris on this machine ie the acer one.

Install a 64-bit version of Linux, staying in the Red Hat family try FC5/6 or CentOS-4.4 or Scientific Linux 404. The last two are freely available work alike clones of RHEL4.

http://www.centos.org/
http://fedora.redhat.com/
https://www.scientificlinux.org/

I'm currently running RHEL5Beta2 64-bit on an Acer Aspire 5000 which is also a 64-bit cpu system the only real difference then your laptop is the VGA controller. I'm using the laptop to post this reply BTW.

I answered you in you other posting about installing Solaris10 on the laptop, the answer was yes.

Lenard is correct on getting a newer distro. Whether you 64 bit or 32bit does not matter, but since it is 64bit take the plunge. It will be a learning experience to say the least. That looks like the model I may get tomorrow at Circuit City.

Reasons on redhat 9 are mostly related to the kernel. First it is a 2.4 kernel and today if you have any problems the first thing mentioned is upgrade your kernel and 2.6 is current tier of kernels. Other things is the modules in 2.4 kernel are old and may not support newer versions of hardware. Plus the installer in redhat 9 and lower was terrible.

If you wish to try redhat you can use the command ' linux noprobe nofirewire ' on the boot line to start the installer and see how far that takes you. But you may be stuck again on a reboot when the dreaded kudzu tool starts up and checks for new hardware and locks you out again.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Brian

I am about to buy this machine as well. My question is, does anyone know if the wireless card in the thing will run on Linux?

Yes, the wireless interface works with Linux.........

If you get one with a Atheros wireless device then use the madwifi driver package.

If you gey one with a BroadCom wirless device the use ndiswrapper and the Windows driver.
If you install a 64-bit version of Linux using ndiswrapper will require the 64-bit Windows driver.

Make sure your ati card works (I can only get 1024x768 res. even though the card X1300 is capable of 1280x800). that is a big drawback.

Works just fine for me at 1280x800 using either the default radeon or the ATi 3rd party driver, here an example xorg.conf file(ATi driver fglrx);

Code:



# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display



Section "ServerLayout"

        Identifier    "single head configuration"

        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0

        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"

        InputDevice    "Synaptics" "CorePointer"

EndSection



Section "Files"

EndSection



Section "Module"

        Load  "dri"

        Load  "extmod"

        Load  "glx"

EndSection



Section "ServerFlags"

        Option            "AIGLX" "off"

EndSection



Section "InputDevice"

        Identifier  "Keyboard0"

        Driver      "kbd"

        Option            "XkbModel" "pc105"

        Option            "XkbLayout" "us"

EndSection



Section "InputDevice"

        Identifier  "Synaptics"

        Driver      "synaptics"

        Option            "Device" "/dev/input/mice"

        Option            "Protocol" "auto-dev"

        Option            "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"

EndSection



Section "Monitor"



 ### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:

        Identifier  "Monitor0"

        ModelName    "LCD Panel 1280x800"

        Option            "dpms"

EndSection



Section "Device"

        Identifier  "Videocard0"

        Driver      "fglrx"

        Option            "Centermode" "off"

        Option            "UseInternalAGPGART" "no"

EndSection



Section "Screen"

        Identifier "Screen0"

        Device    "Videocard0"

        Monitor    "Monitor0"

        DefaultDepth    24

        SubSection "Display"

                Viewport  0 0

                Depth    24

        EndSubSection

EndSection



Section "DRI"

        Group        0

        Mode        0666

EndSection



Section "Extensions"

        Option            "Composite" "False"

EndSection

I'm sorry. I don't understand. What do I need to change to get the right res? Also, the wireless card will not work with the Fedora simultaneous-download-and-install CD, correct?

Quote:

I'm sorry. I don't understand. What do I need to change to get the right res?

The /etc/X11/xorg.conf example file should work just fine with the driver installed. It is from my Acer Aspire 5100 laptop that I'm using to respond. You should be able to replace yours with this one or using your choice of text editor make the changes.

Quote:

Also, the wireless card will not work with the Fedora simultaneous-download-and-install CD, correct?

Correct, you have a wired connection that should work without any problem.