Linux Installation on an Acer LapTop HOWTO
Harish Thampi S, harish.thampi@wipro.com
1.0, 2001-01-08
This document describes how to install Linux on a Acer LapTop and Var
ious issues related to this. The reader is expected to have some
knowledge about Linux Installation.
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Preface
1.2 Copyright
1.3 Disclaimer
1.4 Feedback
2. The Procedure
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Preparing the Disk
2.3 Installation
2.4 Booting the Machine
2.5 Configuring X
2.6 Linmodem Source
3. Conclusion
3.1 Useful Links
______________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
1.1. Preface
This is version 1.0 of this document. We faced a lot of problems while
installing Linux on a Acer LapTop. We thought this information might
be useful to the Linux community.
This information is intended for Linux on the Intel platform. Much of
this information may be applicable to Linux on other processors, but
We have no first-hand experience or information about this.
This document may be outdated or some other document on this topic may
be available. Please check the the Linux Documentation Project
homepage to see if any other documents are
available on this.
1.2. Copyright
Copyright is a source of much and continuous debate on the LDP mailing
list. For more in depth information please consult the Manifesto at
the LinuxDoc site. The purpose of having a
license is to allow appropriate distribution. You can use any license
that meets the Manifesto. What follows is a boilerplate licence.
Copyright (c) 2001 by Harish Thampi S.
Please freely copy and distribute (sell or give away) this document in
any format. It's requested that corrections and/or comments be
forwarded to the document maintainer. You may create a derivative work
and distribute it provided that you:
· Send your derivative work (in the most suitable format such as
sgml) to the LDP (Linux Documentation Project) or the like for
posting on the Internet. If not the LDP, then let the LDP know
where it is available.
· License the derivative work with this same license or use GPL.
Include a copyright notice and at least a pointer to the license
used.
· Give due credit to previous authors and major contributors.
If you're considering making a derived work other than a translation,
it's requested that you discuss your plans with the current
maintainer.
1.3. Disclaimer
Use the information in this document at your own risk. I disavow any
potential liability for the contents of this document. Use of the
concepts, examples, and/or other content of this document is entirely
at your own risk.
All copyrights are owned by their owners, unless specifically noted
otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded as
affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.
Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as
endorsements.
You are strongly recommended to take a backup of your system before
major installation and backups at regular intervals.
1.4. Feedback
We welcome any feedback, good or bad, on the content of this document.
We have done our best to ensure that the instructions and information
herein are accurate and reliable. Please let us know if you find any
errors or omissions.
Send comments, corrections and questions to the author at
harish.thampi@wipro.com.
2. The Procedure
2.1. Introduction
This document for installing Linux on a LapTop (Acer TravelMate 345T)
It comprises of the general difficulties you can run into while trying
an install on an Acer TravelMate 345T. I have a hand on experience
only on Acer TravelMate 345T. This may be applicable to other Models
also.
This document assumes some basic familiarity with concepts of Linux
system administration. For example, you should know about directories
and filesystems.
2.2. Preparing the Disk
The document specifically tells about the installation of Linux on a
Laptop along with Windows 98.
First you should partition the disk according to your choice. You may
face problems when you want a dual boot machine. That is you have
Windows on /dev/hda1 and Linux '/' on /dev/hda2
I faced some strange problem here. Initially I had a 5.3 GB disk on
which Windows 98 was installed and drive c: constituted the entire
5.3GB.
I wanted to repartition the disk to put Linux on to it. So I booted
with a RedHat CD and partitioned the disk as follows.
/dev/hda1 3 GB For Windows 98
/dev/hda2 200 MB For Linux /
/dev/hda3 128 MB For Swap
/dev/hda4 2 GB Extended
/dev/hda5 1GB /usr
/dev/hda6 1GB /home1
After installation of Linux, I found that Windows 98 was still running
fine on /dev/hda1. Even more interesting fact is that Windows is able
to see that entire 5.3 GB of the disk. I doubted that this could lead
to corruption of data and had no other way except formatting and start
again. Any feedback on this issue is welcome. Any links or references
are also welcome.
Note: When you list the partitions with a dos fdisk, the extended
partition made with Linux fdisk is shown as an EXT DOS partition.
Later I changed the type of Extended partition to Extended Linux.
Still Windows was able to see the entire 5.3 GB of the disk.
I have put /dev/hda2 as the '/' partition and put /dev/hda5 as '/usr'.
This approach will help in separating the files that change frequently
from those that doesn't. This is also useful for backup purposes.
2.3. Installation
Installation of RedHat Linux on a Laptop is pretty easy. This is
almost like installing Linux on a PC. The only problem we faced was
that it was not possible to install Linux from the RedHat CD in any
mode other than will cause the installation to hang.
2.4. Booting the Machine
The Acer LapTop had some PCMICA devices. While booting the LapTop, the
machine would hang looking for more pcmcia devices. If you face this
problem, you need to reboot the machine with the boot floppy and edit
the file /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia and set PCIC_OPTS="do_scan=0". The next
time you reboot the machine, it should boot up with the newly
installed Linux.
2.5. Configuring X
This is problem for which I was not able to find an answer. After
booting up the machine, I tried to configure X using xf86config.
The Acer LapTop had an 800x600 LCD panel. I had selected S-VGA and
800x600 resolution. When I tried starting X, I found that the mode is
being taken as 320x200. The boot message says that it is the built-in
mode. Any Pointers to this are welcome. The output of SuperProbe was:
First video: Super-VGA
Chipset: Trident (chipset unknown) (PCI Probed)
Signature data: 95251023 (please report)
Memory: 2048 Kbytes
RAMDAC: Sierra SC1148{2,3,4} 15-bit or SC1148{5,7,9} 15/16-bit HiColor
(with 6-bit wide lookup tables (or in 6-bit mode))
2.6. Linmodem Source
The Laptop had a softmodem (Linmodem). The driver for this modem is
not given in the RedHat distribution. Lucent is providing the driver
for this modem in 'object' form. The source for this driver is not
available. It will be good if the Linux community can provide the
source for the Linmodem. The difficulty with the Lucent Linmodem
driver is that, the driver is written for Linux 2.2.12 Kernel. This is
one of the reason why the source code for Linmodem would be considered
a great contribution. I have listed some links that could proove to be
useful in this venture.
3. Conclusion
This document has covered the problems faced during the installation
of Linux on a Laptop. The document may not be complete any feedback or
contribution towards this will be appreciated. The main area on which
the Linux community can work is in solving out problems in configuring
X and getting the source code for the Linmodem driver.
Please mail your contributions for this document to
harish.thampi@wipro.com so that I can come up with the next version of
this document.
3.1. Useful Links
· http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-08/lw-08-linmodem.html
· http://www.linmodems.org/
· http://www.close.u-net.com/
· http://linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/