I'm currently running Mandrake 9.2 on a HP T30. All seems to be running well, although I had a hard time configuring my mn-720 wirless nic. Linuxant helped with that problem. The only other thing that I can't get to work is when the laptop "goes to sleep" I can't wake it up. I have to reeboot the machine. Any of you have the answer to this? thanks in advance for your thoughts and time.

i have slackware 9.1, mandrake 9.2 and whinedows XP on a VAIO FR720, as everybody can see from my sig, but i am using slackware 9.1 99% of the time. no complaints with slack. i have used mandrake, redhat and knoppix but i found one problem after another.
i am happy with slack as most of my devices work. i am confident that if ever i encounter a problem with any of my devices or apps, i will be able to figure out what is wrong with the help of LQ and google.

I'm running debian on a panasonic cf-71 toughbook everything went off without a hitch. If you are really having trouble try knoppix. it's very good at recognizing and configuring hardware.

If you want to know trouble try to get a 64 bit system up and running on a emachines laptop.The things that do work are really fast though.

I've been using RH9 on a dell inspiron 7000. Infinite problems with wireless even after the wlan-ng drivers installed and such. I'm now 87% percent into a SuSE 9.0 ftp install. Hope it works. If not I think I'll try Slack....

I had a thinkpad once and SusE worked great, trackpoint and all, apart from no sound
but that was 6.4 I think. I remember Windows couldn't do the screen but
could the sound!

Now it's 9.0 and I just got a brand new
3GHz Gericom laptop, and it seems fine. Sound and Vision.
Haven't tried the ethernet or modem yet though.

I have Slackware 9.1 running on my Dell Latitude D600, and previously I had Mandrake 9.1 installed on it. Mandrake 9.1 was pretty new when this laptop came out on the market, so there have been more issues with Mandy than with Slack. With graphics drivers from ATI supporting XFree 4.3 and more laptop support in the kernel, it has been more straightforward with Slackware 9.1 than with Mandrake 9.1. The issues I've been having are the following:

Graphics: I remember having problems getting the graphics acceleration working with Mandy, but now when ATI's drivers supports XFree 4.3, it's been trouble-free, except for some fiddling with /etc/XF86Config(-4).

ACPI: With both distros I've had to recompile the kernel with ACPI, but that's pretty standard. When I used Mandy 9.1 I was forced to use an ugly kernel hack to get ACPI working because of a buggy BIOS (A03). Now, before installing Slack 9.1 I flashed the BIOS, upgrading it to A09, and now I've had no such problem.

DMA: The kernel shipped with Mandy 9.1 was 2.4.21, which had some problems with the DMA, so the harddrive access was pretty slow. Now I'm using 2.6.3, and I'm having no problems.

Sound: There were some issues with the onboard sound card (Intel's AC'97) when I had Mandrake installed, but this hasn't occurred with Slackware.

Have fun in the future Gericom is the last I would buy. Everyone I know using a Gericom said never again: After 6 month the battery was killed, no warrant any more, the support is terrible.....but: Have fun

I just installed Mandrake 10 on my hp ze5375us - 512mb ram, 64/128 ATI video, Lanexpress 802.11b integrated wireless. Everything is working great - even the onboard wireless. This is what I did - on install use linux noauto, configure only the display as a 1024x768 lcd, leave networking and sound until install is done. Once install is complete go in to software and add all the necessary packages such as pcmcia, wireless, and plug-ins and sound programs - I put in all available codecs, and software options except for server items. Reboot and then go into the hardware configuration, set your sound card to use the alternate trident sound driver. For wireless it should see the card as a harris prism 2.5, you should use the Orinoco_pci driver, set your settings (essid, encryption key, gateway, ip address, subnet mask) it works! I have seen many posts on this type of computer with wireless problems but I didnt have to manually alter anything to get it to work. The sound is great, my Internet works with wireless, my display is fantastic. Looks like they got a lot of the bugs out of this version of Mandrake, although I am sure I will still run into some.

i just put knoppix on my thinkpad R40. everthing works -- sound, net, pcmcia, acpi, etc. the only thing i haven't tested is the wireless, but i imagine that also either works, or would be easy to set up. knoppix is awesome.

I have been thinking of getting a laptop and putting linux on it. Thus far it's at the phase that southerners would refer to as "fixin' to do it".
Anyway I came across what I thought was an excellent resource called Linux on laptops .
They have a pretty exhaustive list of laptop/linux distribution combinations.

Anyone installed Red Hat 9 on IBM T41? If so, any issues?

I just installed Knoppix 3.3 on my 4 year old Compaq Presarion 1200XL and am loving it. It had a nice and easy install and I haven't had to do anything at all to get it working. It auto detected my Trident CyberBlade Video card, my VIA AC'97 Audio controller and also my Intel PRO/100 SR Mobile PC Card.

I would highly recommend Knoppix to anyone wanting a small and fast Linux distro.

noobtesting

I just breezed past the 5 pages of this... I've run Slackware, RedHat, Mandrake and now Gentoo on a Compaq 1200 Presario and a Thinkpad i1400 over the past few years... and really, one of the best:

OpenBSD

Nothing says spooky like a geek carting around a Blowfish stickered up Thinkpad.

Cheers,

Finegan

I have wanted to load Open BSD on my presario 1200 so it is good to know someone else has gotten it to work for them. How much of a hassel was it. Did you have to find all the drivers for it or did they actually auto detect with BSD?

Some help on the install would be much appreciated FInegan.

Thanks for the help if you decide to help me.

noobtesting