Well, now that my version of Linux is working fairly well, I think it is time to change gears... No rest for the wicked!

Anyway, I have burned the 'sarge' distro of debian, and I think I will install it soon, since RH9 is, for a number of reasons, not doing it for me. However, before I undertake this project, I fugured I should find out if anybody has had any experience putting debian on a toshiba laptop (I am running a Satellite A10)?

In particular, I have seen a number of posts from people getting a 'no monitor found' error when attempting to start X. Even worse is the fact that I have not seen any real fixes for this problem. Is this old news, or should I find a different distro?

OK then, thank you all in advance for your time.

Cheers!

-T-

My best advice to you if to get yourself a copy of knoppix. Don't actually install knoppix on your hard drive but use it to get settings off of. For me it's been a lifesaver.

The "no screens found" error can happen with any distro (it's an XFree86 error). It's when you have either not defined any screens in XF86Config-4 or when you have, but they are unusable. A quick edit of the config file usually solves this. If you run across this problem, browse the /var/log/XFree86<....> log and check for the error messages. These are usually pretty verbose and helpful.

....but hey! Why the heck am I troubleshooting a problem which you haven't experienced yet? LOL

Håkan

adz:

OK, so I looked over Knoppix, and that all seems good, except I don't really understand why you recommend that I get this distro? What would I need it for?

Very curious, thanks in advance once again.

-T-

Hi, I think that Adz means the following: (I do it as well but instead of knoppix I use morphix)

These distro's (knoppix, morphix or any other live distro) allow you to run linux on any pc without installing it. They basically are a good showacse for Linux without having to install it. The cool thing about these distro's is that they usually work with some sort of supermagic plug-n-play, and they will work just fine! They configure basically all the hardware they find! I was having troubles with X, I loaded morphix and looked in the XFree86's settings file and I was able to pass those settings on my installed distro on my hd. and I had a working X screen! :-)

Adz if you didn't meant it this way just correct me... :-) And as for the topicstarter please post back how you get along if you use knoppix... I have here a new toshiba a10 lying around but haven't had the time yet to wipe off XP. plus I am too busy to get my fujitsu lifebook fully functional.

PS: I tried morphix on the toshiba and I had a working graphical interface!... bad part was that it wasn't fullscreen.... it had blackborders around it :-(

Yep that's exactly what I meant. I have a wierd PC that I got for free so I'm not complaining. But even Windows XP wouldn't configure any of the devices. I mean no sound, crappy video and no network. Same for linux. I simply couldn't find out what brand and chipset everything was and lspci gave me a whole lot of "unknown devices". It was all integrated so I couldn't read it off the harware, either. Loaded knoppix and EVERYTHING was detected. I looked up the settings and now I have a fully working computer in proper debian. I then used that info to set up windows! How 'bout that!

So I guess that answers both your questions. I've never tried it on a notebook but I can't imagine it'll do a bad job. I've basically never had it not detect something or not boot.

adz / BlackCell:

When you put it that way, the Knoppix route sounds great! Thanks to a nominally successful kernel re-compile the other week, I know where and what most of the devices on the ol' Toshiba are, but there are still a few greay areas...

Anyway, I have downloaded and burned the Knoppix disk, and I think I will begin fighting with the Debian install tomorrow.

Thanks again, I will let you know how this ends up.

Cheers!

-T-

OK, so I have been a little too busy for the last few months to actually sit down and do the Debian install. Oops.

Anyhow, I seem to have the time now, but I also forgot some key information. Specifically, I am typing this while using Konqueror, running off of Morphix. It works great! Everything was detected, and all the annoyances I have been having with RH9 are fixed.

Only problem is, I have forgotten how to find all of the current device settings, so that Debian will operate as smoothly. Anybody have some specific instructions available?

Thanks in advance,

-T-

They're in a few different places. Which devices in particular are you trying to configure?

Uh, well, most everything I guess. Sound, video, graphics, internet, USB devices (keyboard, mouse, etc...), and the CD/CD-R/DVD drive would be nice too.

Thanks in advace,

-T-

Sound, you can go two ways: OSS or ALSA. ALSA you'll have to compile but they're usually better quality. If you want specifics tell me what card you have.

Graphics depends on your make. There will probably be some (non open source) drivers you can download from their site. There may be some open source ones as well but 3D stuff will usually suffer.

Internet is a little vague. You mean modem or ethernet card?

USB devices, you'll need to load the following modules:

usbkbd
usb-uhci (or usb-ehci)
keybdev
mousedev
hid
usbcore
input

That should get just about any USB devices working.

The DVD drive should be already configured. It get done automatically. Unless your talking about SCSI emulation and/or CD burning.