I am going to be installing linux on my laptop. I have succesfully installed in on a few desktops without any complication but I might need some help with the laptop install.

My big question is how to set it up to use built in hardware such as the keyboard and the mouse tracker pad. What if I use my built in keyboard and pad when im away but when Im home I hook up a real mouse and sometimes even a keyboard???

Thanks.

depends on the distro, redhat will reconfigure on boot, so will several others.

Basically you can have several input devices in your x configuration, if some of them are not there it will still work as long as it has one to use.

for instance

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

# ChordMiddle is an option for some 3-button Logitech mice

# Option "ChordMiddle"

EndSection


Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Mouse2"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons"
Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"




Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "layout1"
Screen "screen1"

InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"

InputDevice "Mouse2" "SendCoreEvents"

(EE) xf86OpenSerial: Cannot open device /dev/mouse
No such file or directory.
(WW) Mouse1: cannot open input device


see this error
my external usb wheel mouse is not connected.
X still works,
my touchpad is still working.

The same is pretty much true with the external moniter. The bios keys that change the display should still work.

If you hook up an external ps2 mouse it will share settings with the touchpad and tit or whatever you call that stupid pointer in the middle of the keyboard. So actually I can plug in a ps2 mouse and have three mice right now, and if I hookup the usb it makes four working mice.

The problem is the ps/2 wheel will not work with my settings, it is more or less setup for the two button touchpad and pointer device. Since I use the pad I like to use an external usb wheel mouse.

The external peripherals should not be too much of a hassle. I run RH7.3 on Dell Latitude 810 and I just watch the boot up when I am docked and undocked for the first time so Kudzu will find the new devices and remove the old devices. This keeps it nice and clean.

There are SOME articles I have found for setting up booting profiles for various environments that I want to look into. This would allow you to set up a docked profile and an undocked profile and select it from the lilo or grub start screen.

One of my main issues with the Notebook Linux install is when I run on the docking station WITH an external monitor. At home I only use the docking station as an input peripheral consolidation tool. At work I also have a monitor hooked to it. When I try to go into X the display disappears and the LCD comes on. Not that this is any good as the monitor is ontop of the notebook on the docking station!

Like I said, do some research on boot profiles. I know I am...

Linux config has some setup for the profiles, you can specify certain config files for each profile if you want to go to all the trouble.


Normally if you have a newer laptop the bios may have the option to set a primary display to use. This should probably be set to external. That way by default if the laptop is docked it will use the video card in the docker, or the external video port on the laptop if your docker has no card.


Distros like RedhAt and Mandrake will pretty much set it all up for you to where it works. A lot of distros are not setup to use kudzu and they will require a lot of manual tweeking.

Have a look for your machine on linux-laptop.net, chances are if someone else has tried it there will be some hints and tips there, plus some generic laptop specific help.