Hello,
I`d like like to find a distro I can install on my laptop.The problem is that the laptop has both the intel 915PM-ICH6 chipset and 2 hard drives on software raid(VIA's VT6421)
Fedora core has known issues with this laptop and will always get kernel panics(tried both FC3-4) and Mepis,while being able to work fine off the Live CD(seems to detect most stuff) will not detect the hard drives and therefore cannot be installed.
From what I`ve been reading,for any distro to install properly and detect the necessary hardware it will have use a kernel after 2.6.11(the software raid drivers haven`t been integrated up to that kernel)
In fact I don`t even know if 2.6.12 has the drivers for certain but I`d like to try and find out
So,I`m looking for suggestions on distros which use kernels 2.6.12 and preferably have KDE(I can deal with Gnome if necessary but I`m too used to KDE so I`d like to avoid it if possible)
So far I`ve mostly used Fedora Coreand mepis on my desktop PCs(I`ve tried Mandrake and Suse but not used them a lot) so if you could suggest a distro with similar features that would be very helpful
Also,if you know of a distro that is already confirmed to work on this laptop(or work with the particular raid/chipset in general)do tell

Thanks for any help!

We have encountered the exact same problem with the SuSE 9.2 disc we have here.

I have heard rumours that SuSE 9.3 may work better, but can't confirm that until we actually get hold of a copy.

This would also be very useful for us too -- can anyone confirm for sure whether SuSE 9.3 (or any other distro) is known to work on this particular laptop (Amilo M3438G).

Thanks in advance for any help.

Kindest regards,


Spudley.

Hello again,
finally got distros to work on it
The final candidate for SimplyMepis 3.3.2 does identify the software raid drives properly and everything works correctly except for 2 things:
I have to run with acpi=off to get past cpufreq and also use xdrvr=vesa because the preincluded nv driver doesn`t work properly(thought that is minor since I can just install the drivers afterwards)The sound card doesn`t work either but there are linux drivers out for it so I can just use these
Haven`t tested the wireless card at all so cannot comment on it
I`ve also installed ubuntu 5.04 and Knoppix(don`t remember the version at the moment) succesfully,these had the same problems SimplyMepis had except for the graphics drivers(identified correctly and runs on all resolutions without any trouble)
Not tried Suse on it yet I`m afraid

Cheers,
Costas

Just wondered if you had tried installing SUSE yet ?
I did try installing 9.3, install went ok but after rebooting system and selecting linux it just hung.