eMachines M5310: Success and failure
 

Hi there folks,

I have recently installed Fedora Core 3 on an eMachines M5310 laptop, and I thought I would share with you some of my experiences, and get some feedback (if available).

First off, without boring you all, it was quite the task to get it on there. I had WinXP Home, and I didn't want to completely blow it away, but with the help of a trial-ware defrag program and some VERY cool open-source tools (Thank you, System Rescue CD) I was able to repartition the drive without starting from scratch.

Now, as for Fedora Core 3, it is very slick. It seems to run well on my machine, and it hasn't caused me any usability problems so far, except for the bells and whistles. The install was pretty much automatic, with very little intervention (other than inserting CDs), and the end result was that the machine came up and running, without any of the problems that I saw addressed in these forums (YMMV).

Here are the things that, right now, aren't quite working:

1. Modem. This is one of those on-board jobs, so Linux/FC3 is having a bugger of a time finding it. I remain confident that it can be done, but right now it's not looking too good (thus, the WinXP "hail mary" pass). I do NOT have high-speed/networking/DSL right now, so this one is a pain, but it's not a showstopper.

2. CD. It works great as a CD-ROM, but audio cds are a no-go. I have tried several suggestions, one of which actually caused the CD-ROM part to cease functioning as well. D'oh indeed! I will keep scanning the boards, but if anyone has any idea how to get this fixed (it's a CD/CD-RW/DVD combo drive), please do let me know.

3. USB stick. It works great when you plug it in, but woe be to him who tries to unmount it, pull it out, and plug it back in again. If I pull it out, it's not going back in until I reboot. Bit of a pain (see above about no DSL, but lotsa RPMs fit on a USB stick). I wish I could get this one solved, if only because I would like to be able to "hot swap" it in and out.

As many of you may have noticed, I haven't mentioned doing an update from FC3 yet. I would, but without a modem for dial-up, I'm outta luck. How sad for me.

I'll keep on fighting the good fight, and see what I can fix "on my own"*, and what someone else might be able to help me with.



* Note, that by this comment, I mean, finding the answers by pawing through thousands of messages on this, and other, boards.