I tried suse 9.0 and got the pcmcia working with the external mode, not the kernel. I am now trying to get mandrake 10 to recognize the pcmcia modem and it won't without hanging. It will hang at boot. It won't hang when I plug it in while linux is running. It will hand when kppp scans for the modem. It won't come up in harddrake. The more advanced kernel lilo can boot from in mandrake 10, (can't remember what it is, in xp now) will not recognize it without hanging either. I've heard that you need to have acpi enabled to get pcmcia support working, but that also hangs both kernels at boot. Does it help to disable legacy usb in the bios, and if so, how does the usb mouse work? Too many questions. I found that someone has gotten fedora core 1 to work on this laptop, but I can't even get fedora to install. Only suse, mepis, and mandrake. Any ideas?