Hi,
I own an old Model 862 Notebook by Clevo, also sold under various other Names (SEH, Nan Tan,...) It's running Windows NT 4.0 fine at this time, but I want to use Linux with it. So I made a Mandrake10 PCMCIA-Bootdisk, and booted the Notebook from it (it isn't able to boot from CD). I read in an old insecure.org-Thread before, that the PCMCIA-Controller (Cirrus Logic) isn't compatible, because normally it is used as a ISA-Device, but in this Notebook, it's used with the PCI-Bus. But I thougt, why not give it a try with the new 2.6 Kernel?
It detected the Cirrus-Controller just fine, but...

----
probing PCI Bus...
Cirrus Logic CL6729 found (2 sockets, driver i82356)
insmod pcmcia_core...
succeeded
insmod i82356...
error: no such device
failed

...

cardmgr/hacked starting...
cardmgr/hacked: no sockets found!
cardmgr failed
---

Seems like I need a new driver for this stuff.

Older driver actually... I've got some old LapNote laptops with a similar pcmcia device and with newer kernels I was never able to get the bloody thing to load, albeit this was a number of years ago when 2.4.3 was fresh and yenta_socket was buggy as hell, but from what I remember then support for the Cirrus controllers was dropped.

If i82356 doesn't load, there's also tcic.o and i82092.o, but I can't remember if this kid uses either of those.

Also, we're talking P1-ish? Mandy is going to run like a dog on that hardware. I've thrown all 3 of the BSDs on mine and they can at least do a decent X. Debian was another one I got some mileage out of... before the kernel switch, back on pcmcia-cs and 2.2

Cheers,

Finegan

So, you're saying I should use a pre-2.4 Kernel, or use BSD? I got the FreeBSD 4.9 CDs here, do you know if my PCMCIA controller is then supported by FreeBSD 4.9?

Is there really a need to load a PCMCIA-module? Under DOS (I used it for netowork install of WinNT), I only needed a small driver for my 3com ethernet card, no need for a general PCMCIA driver.


Oh, what just came to my mind, I also got the Debian woody CDs lying around here... Maybe I'll try the 2.2 Kernel from it tomorrow...

Going as far back as 2.2 may be a little masochistic, I got mileage out of FreeBSD 4.5 (that was a while ago), and all of the past 4 releases of OpenBSD and the Cirrus controller. I could tell you which one exactly, but its coming back from LWE in the trunk of my roommate's car. In both cases I did net installs of each using, no kidding, a wireless card. (albeit on an open network, I don't think there's wep support built into the boot utilities)

Cheers,

Finegan

Hmm, ok, I'll try with my FreeBSD
Wish me luck

Right on, post back... or really, try a new thread over in *BSD if you get stuck (That not being double posting as its an entirely different problem).

Cheers,

Finegan