Hi all. I've recently come across one of those nifty eMachines 64-bit Laptops.
The one at: http://www.e4me.com/products/product...Machines_M6807

So that takes care of the specs. Ok. Now, I'm not attempting the 64-bit OS just yet. Why not you may ask. Well, because it's a new machine, and I first want to demonstrate its purposes in 32-bit mode first before venturing into the 64-bit market completely.
...or just because. Anyhow, heres what I've done.

It came with XP Home by default. (blah) So, I partionMagiced the drive in half. Now 2 30G partitions. Right. So now I boot with SuSE( DVD. Kewl. It boots, seems to detect everything accordingly, far as I can tell, then goes on with the installation.
Getting thru the install, upon reboot, it freezes at the nice lil SuSE blue boot screen. While still loading...
*******************
...
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
hdc: attached ide-scsi driver.
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
Vendor: Slimtype Model: COMBO LSC-24082K Rev: JBK2
...
...
Setting up the CMOS clock.....................................done
Setting up timezone data.....................................done
Setting scheduling timeslices.................................unused
Setting up hostname 'linux'...................................done
Setting up loopback interface................................done
Enaabling syn flood protection..............................done
Disabling IP forwarding.......................................done
Creating /var/log/boot.msg..................................done
System Boot Control: The system has been.........setup
Skipped features:...............................................boot.sched
System Boot Control: Running /etc/init.d/boot.local............done
INIT: Entering runlevel 5
Boot logging started on /dev/tty1(/dev/console) at Thru... done
...
Setting up network interfaces:
lo................................................................................done
eth0 (DHCP) .................no IP address yet... backgrounding..... done
Starting syslog services.....................................................................done
Starting hotplugging services [i3331394 net pci usb ... ] ...............done
Starting resource manager................................................................done
Starting kernel PCMCIA (... cleaning up left-over devices).................done

Starting RPC portmap daemon............................................................done
Mount SMB File System......................................................................unused
Starting sound driver
**************************************************
And thats where it stops. While the hotplugging section goes on, I get a few small beeps. As if I guess is found that ok, or maybe it was pissed off. It continues onto the sound driver then completely locks. Cold power down.

Any ideas? I can't get this to boot past this point.

Tnx.

L8rz

First, wait for Suse 9.1 to come out so that your using an os that came out after the computer...

Second, use the 64 bit edition so that your hardware is actually supported...

The hardware should be supported otherwise.

Its a laptop. It has its own special chipsets and features designed to be only in that laptop. Just because it "should" be supported by the plain suse 32 bit edition doesnt mean it actually is, as any modifications needed to make the laptop work with suse would have been put only into the 64 bit edition since that's what people would buy for it.

I have a friend with the M6805. He installed Gentoo. What happens when he compiled everything in plain 32 bit mode? It failed. Period.
Switched over to 64 bit compiling? Works fine, and he has everything but dri working on the thing.

So, once again. Use the 64 bit edition of whatever you want, or forget about it.

i've got the same laptop, m6805 athlon 64 emachines --> i've tried mandrake 9.2 for AMD64 and that installed fine, but didn't recognize most of my devices, and nothing will install properly. I then tried the 10.0 beta Mandrake release for AMD64, (in the readme file, it lists most of the hardware i have, and says it should be compatible), and that version wouldn't even install. It locks up with black screen that says, in the bottom, <alt + F1> for here, <alt + F4> for kernal message. HELP ME PLEASE!!! i ask for only one thing: i want to play unreal 2k4 on a 64bit version of linux, on my laptop... that would rule so much.

Can you use the installation disks to boot up the machine (SuSE kind of hides this on the second CD, but it should allow you to start up your new system).


John

i don't have suse. i've got mandrake 9.2 iso's for x86 and AMD64 and 10.0 beta for x86 and AMD64. i can load both 9.2 for x86 and AMD64, but not 10.0 beta for either x86 or AMD64. i get into the bootloader and it freezes.. everytime.. i have to hold down the power switch to turn it off. 9.2 for x86 or AMD64 both function the same... poorly... nothing recognized and nothing able to install. 10.0 just won't work, either version. if you've got a link i can use to get an iso for suse, preferably for the AMD64 build that works best with the new emachines 64 laptop. I ASK GOD FOR ONLY ONE THING: I WANT TO PLAY UNREAL 2K4 ON MY LAPTOP, ON A 64bit VERSION OF LINUX...PLEASE HELP!!!

Ok - here's the story on those things.
Ati driver will not work in 64 bit because there is only a 32 bit driver from ati and xfree doesn't support the chipset yet with their ati driver.You'll have to use vesa.
There is an IRQ conflict with the ethernet thingy.Sound and touchpad should work fine and it is very fast.I only got rid of mine because I didn't feel like waiting for ati to put a driver out.Mandrake didn't work for me either.Knoppix works in 'failsafe' mode (as 32 bit - just for info).
Gentoo worked nice for me besides of the hardware issues.There's a long thread about this machine at the gentoo forums.The most important part or it is this pasted right from the developers mouth:

As long as you use gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.3-r2 or higher,
the kernel fully supports the emachines m680X laptops.
The kernel config you should be using is provided with new
'genkernel' releases. 'emerge genkernel' to install genkernel.
The kernel config is:
/usr/share/genkernel/x86_64/kernel-config-2.6-emachines

You must also pass 'pci=noacpi noapic' to the kernel, please
DO NOT reverse any of these letters. No typos are accepted here!
Look very very very closely! noacpi and noapic are different!

Ok, now that that rant is done with (you can tell too many people
have made this mistake), we can continue...

We recommend using a 'genkernel' compiled kernel to get you
started, here would be your procedure:

Quote:

emerge gentoo-dev-sources
emerge genkernel
genkernel --kernel-config=/usr/share/genkernel/x86_64/kernel-config-2.6-emachines all


Once that finishes successfully, you should make a grub.conf
that looks like this:

Quote:

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Emachines Kernel
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/kernel-2.6.3-gentoo-r2 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc real_root=/dev/hda3 vga=0x317 splash=verbose pci=noacpi noapic
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd-2.6.3-gentoo-r2


Please NOTE that (hd0,0) is the harddrive, and parition of where
/boot resides in every instance! root (hd0,0) doesn't mean it
should point to /dev/hda3, as root refers to the root for grub,
not your root filesystem. Totally different! (again, you can see
too many people have made this mistake!)

Now, you should also emerge hotplug in order to have it
automatically detect your remaining hardware (e.g. NIC)
on startup.

Quote:

emerge hotplug
rc-update add hotplug default


Ok, now once you have it up and running, and if something
doesn't work, and you've re-read this 20x, then you can ask
for support!

thanks dude. i'm going to try that as soon as i get off of work. mucho obliged!

Your buddy must have screwed up the 32 bit install somewhere along the way.Worked fine for me.

Hey crash,
are u saying that the 32-bit SuSE worked on the 64-bit eMachine laptop?

Secondly:
I've dl'd the gentoo amd64 iso (LiveCD) and booted with it. It detected most of the hardware, from what I could tell, it scrolled by so quickly, and now I'm at the bootstrap process in the installation.

Ok, I know that the gentoo documentation says that it will take a while, but I'm not seeing it do anything. It has been sitting at the same prompt/screen for the past 4 hours. I don't even see any hdd activity.

The last commands given to the system install were:
**********************
cd /usr/portage
scripts/botstrap.sh -f // dl's the source so the documentation says. Which it did just fine. I saw it dl. It even had status bars.
**********************

Now, then next part of the install procedure is stated as:
**********************
Bootstrapping the System:
cd /usr/portage
scripts/bootstrap.sh
**********************

This is the last thing I typed in as a command and it has been sitting there forever. It started scrolling abunch of mumbo jumbo.
Most of which said:
/usr/sbin/ebuild.sh: line 1225: /dev/null: No such file or directory
/usr/sbin/ebuild.sh: line 1226: /dev/null: No such file or directory
/usr/sbin/ebuild.sh: line 1232: /dev/null: No such file or directory
....
it goes on and on.
Then says:
>>> Unpacking source...
>>> Unpacking protage-2.0.50-r1.tar.bz2 to /var/tmp/portage/portage-2.0.50-r1/work
>>> Source unpacked.
/usr/sbin/ebuild.sh: Line 1432: /dev/null: No such file or directory
.... again for about 15 lines... then
./create-localdecls
Checking truncate argument type... off_t
Checking libc version... libc.so.6
Checking glibc subversion..../create-localdecls: line 1: /dev/null: No such file or directory
./create-localdecls: line 1: /dev/null: No such file or directory
************************

And there it sits for 4 hours. Wondering what (if at all) I've dont wrong. I followed the steps according to the gentoo installation documentation.
Is it really to take this long? Or not? Like I said, I can't even see any hdd activity. No lights blinking, no constant humming, no nothing.

Please advise.
Tnx.

L8rz

i can't speak for suse, but both the 32bit and 64bit versions of mandrake installed just fine. (9.2), but neither the 32bit nor the 64bit versions of 10 would install... at all. keep in mind, when i say install... i can get into the gui, but most of the hardware (videocard, nic, wifi, modem, etc... isn't recognized in any version)... 32bit or 64bit... it's all the same --> only difference difference is in the amount of memory the chip can effectively allocate, and the way in which it writes to that memory... other than that... the hardware is pretty much the same as a 32bit x86 chip. REMEMBER... XP 32bit works just fine on an athlon 64. IT IS AN X86 chip... whether it be 32bit, 64, 128, etc... the architecture is still very similiar. the problem isn't which the chip... it's with the newer hardware (9600 radeon, via's new chipset, wifi, etc...). this 64/32 arguement is a joke... all we want is a version of linux that will recognize ALL of the hardware (videocard, etc...). THE ONLY TANGIBLE DIFFERENCE ON 64 BIT COMPUTING ON A LAPTOP IS MEMORY ALLOCATION --> WHO THE HELL HAS MORE THAN 4GB OF MEMORY ON A LAPTOP???? i doubt even bill gates could pull that off.

Looks like you forgot to bind proc from the live cd to the chrooted environment.Try to do 'exit' to get out of the chroot environment and then mkdir /mnt/gentoo/proc and
mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc.Then go back to the install with chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
Bootstrapping takes normally about 77 minutes.
Don't know about Suse but I don't see why it shouldn't work.Had knoppix and gentoo with 32 bit on it running fine and gentoo with 64 bit.

I could have sworn I did bind the proc.
I think I'm going to start over.
Q: Do you think its better to install from Stage 1, 2, or 3?
I was doing 1 because I figured compiling everything on the machine should make it more suitable for the machine rightt?

Anywho...

L8rz

Well, this isn't so much SuSE anymore as it is Gentoo but...

Ok... so I've found another site that actually has SOME of the install manual, since gentoo site is obviously flaky today.. and yesterday. How long does it take to update text?

Anywho, I'm now at the point of choosing a kernel. First off, is there a specific kernel for the amd64 installs?
I've googled, and found jack crap. Seems that people only want to re-post the same info time and time again. Maybe it makes them feel important to have a small site that has content that exists on 5000 other sites already.

Sorry, I'm rambling. It's just that once I get once step farther, something in the stupid install causes me to have to wait for freakin hours before continuing. It's really retarded, and quite annoying.

ANyhow, I ran:
emerge gentoo-sources
because I couldn't find anything about the amd64 kernel source (If there is such a thing) and got the following error:

*****************************
Calculating dependencies
!!! all ebuilds that could satisfy "gentoo-sources" have been masked.
!!! possible candidates are:
- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.4.26_pre (masked by: missing keyword)
- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.4.19-r11 (masked by: -keyword)
- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.4.20-r14 (masked by: missing keyword)
- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.4.20-r7 (masked by: -keyword)
- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.4.22-r3 (masked by: -keyword)
- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.4.22-r4 (masked by: -keyword)
- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.4.22-r5 (masked by: -* keyword)
- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.4.22-r7 (masked by: -* keyword)
- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.4.25 (masked by: missing keyword)
- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.4.26_pre5 (masked by: missing keyword)
- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.4.26_pre6 (masked by: missing keyword)

!!! Error calculating dependencies. Please correct.
*********************************

And thats it. Correct what? I didn't see anything in the install about any of this. I thot that all of the time spent with downloading sources, portages, emerging, n such would have taken care of these dependencies.

Please advise.

Tnx.
L8rz