I tried to install recently the Red-Hat 7.2 disro on my presario 1210US notebook, after using the "no usb" option during the installation and turning kudzu and usb services off i finally managed it to work. Anyway one problem still remained , every time i worked with linux and rebooted, the computer was hanging during the bios hardware detection and I had to turn it off and on again and then still, it took the computer about 3-4min to start booting... I tried to change the bootloaders , even used the XP bootloader , tried to upgrade the kernel (may be solves the usb problem) nothing helped. Then I got the Mandrake 8.2 distro and thought it might solve the problem. I installed Mandrake with the "noauto" option, configured everything to work properly (even the winmodem and the Network card ) but still the problem with the hanging after booting into linux remained....

A few things I want to make clear - after working with Windows the laptop boots perfectly, only after booting into linux, in first reboot the computer hangs completly (with the Compaq logo in front of my face) and after I turn it off and on again it will boot , but it will still take it a long time to pass the bios hardware detection......

If somebody knows what is the problem, and how to solve it I`ll be gratefull for help....

Sometimes, not all problem deserve a solution. I believe that it is an issue with the HAL(hardware abstraction layer) Not all software is working perfectly on certain types of hardware, I think there aren't much people out there can get a presario working with Linux and yet you have been far, Compaq Presario is suppose to mean for consumer, and the default OS installed usually be windows and I doubt Compaq test their Presario running with Linux. I have no problem running Armarda with most of the popular linux distro. Luck!

Well, I guess nothing can be done...Thanx for the information though....
I`m trying now to rewrite the USB module anyway, may be if I manage to make it work properly it might solve the problem (at least I hope so....)

well, good luck

I have a compaq presario 700 laptop and I have Mandrake 9.1 on it now and I know what you are talking about. But my laptop does not do it all the time. It only does it about 5% of the time and when it does hang, you can just press the fucntion key (fn) and the Power button to turn it off and then turn it back on and it should be fine. Other than that, I have everything running smoothly on my presario... But I must add that I will never buy a compaq again as long as I live becuase of the shotty hinges in the laptop monitor and the poor battery quality. I've already been through two of them with the same problems. :-(

-AquamaN