response 109 of 257:

Apr 6 02:23 UTC 1999

Ran across this web site the other day and it has some tips for
setting up XFree86 on laptops.  Dunno if it'll help or if you've
already seen it, but:
   http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/

response 111 of 257:

Apr 10 05:08 UTC 1999

Here's a few other URL's to go for help:

http://www.linux.org/hardware/laptop.html
  This is an index site, with links to specific case-histories people have
published as they work the kinks out of a specific installation. There are
specific links for the following Fujitsu models:


                          Fujitsu 635T 
                          Fujitsu FM-V 
                          Fujitsu Lifebook 280dx 
                          Fujitsu Lifebook 420D 
                          Fujitsu Lifebook 500 
                          Fujitsu Lifebook 655TX 
                          Fujitsu Lifebook 735Dx 
                          Fujitsu Lifebook 790Tx 
                          Fujitsu Milan 


http://galt.cs.nyu.edu/students/fox/notebooks.html
  This is a tech-reference which lists the specific PCMCIA and video
chipsets used in various laptops.  A great help to me as I was shopping,
to make sure I didn't succumb to some 'great deal' that had an unsupported
video chipset.


There's also a linux-laptops mailing list where you can ask questions, and
share what you learn!
subscribe at majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu.  If you don't know how to use
majordomo, e-mail me and I'll send you a help document.

response 113 of 257:

Apr 15 10:51 UTC 1999

I had some similar troubles with X and high-colour. after wracking my brain
over the problem, I discovered that for some reason, even after setting up
the SGVA server with XF86Config, that it was defaulting to using the VGA16
server. I finally cleared it up by installing the XSVGA server package, and
when it configured itself, it asked if I wanted it to be the default server.
said "yes" and it's been working happily at 800x600x16bpp. I'dlike to go
higher, but I don't think that the CT64300 VLB card that I have has enough
RAM to do that. KDE looks much better now...
and speaking of xearth, does anyone know of any clones of it for the Win16/32
platform. I've tried several other crappy world time proggies for Win9x, but
none of them do what Xearth or the KDE World Watch does.

response 115 of 257:

Apr 18 16:38 UTC 1999

Re. 113:  I'd tell XF86config to use the SVGA server, but depending on 
other settings, it would drop back to the 8-bit server.

I think the only chance of getting this worked out is if I actually 
show what's happening to someone who knows Linux/Xfree, and right now I 
don't know anybody who's into it in my area.

response 117 of 257:

Apr 19 16:05 UTC 1999

usually to your server:
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root  wheel  22 Apr  6 19:05 /usr/X11R6/bin/X ->
/usr/X11R6/bin/XF86_S3

response 119 of 257:

Apr 20 17:31 UTC 1999

        I dunno... that "conifigurator" thang was a wash for me too..
        Setup was the way I went as well..Go figure.

response 121 of 257:

Apr 20 23:28 UTC 1999

Yay!

response 123 of 257:

Apr 21 09:11 UTC 1999

Caldera 2.2 is supposed to be as easy as windoze shrink-wraps to install. It
's install program runs from inside windoze, including the x86free stuff. all
hardware is autprobed, sound suposedly works(!).  I'll know in a few days.
I've had good experience with caldera's 1.2 product, so I'm optimistic.

response 125 of 257:

May 4 11:39 UTC 1999

Gentlemen! One of the IT magazines i had  seen recently, gave away Redhat
Linux 5.2 CD with it's latest issue. And i got the idea to try and install
it. But i'm a bit weird case.....i'm on a network and the systems guys won't
accede to your requests to get it installed on your pc the direct way. And
when i read the Installation manual, I got pissed off about the danger it
might do to the Windows OS running already...since i can not take a backup
as the floppydrives are disabled usually. So if any of you guys can make
sense out of my need to get Linux installed on my machine...if there is a way
to do it with out major hitches..i would be thankful to you.
 I can ask the lIBRARIAN here , who has the CD to load it in his computer and
i can access it via the company net...that's themaximum  i can do...so if u
still have a way out ...please..help me.

response 127 of 257:

May 4 22:40 UTC 1999

The best way to make sure you don't trash your windows OS, is to install
linux on a separate hard disk.  With some care, you can even take out
the disk Windows is installed on while you're doing this, and if windows
isn't in the machine, there's no way linux could possibly trash it.

So far as the "floppies being disabled" - that sounds just plain weird.
It's possible that "floppy boot" might be disabled - if so, that's
something that you should be able to enable by booting the machine into
the rom bios setup program.

Another option might be to beg for some old hardware to install linux
on.  Linux will run fine on a 386 or 486 - machines which it would be
silly to install windows 95 or 98 or NT on.

response 129 of 257:

May 5 02:14 UTC 1999

You can do it.  You'll just have to be very careful to make sure you know
which partition is which.  What you'll probably want to do is *delete* the
partition you're replacing, and create two partitions in the resulting empty
space -- one for a Linux filesystem, one for Linux swap space.

The key here is to MAKE SURE YOU DON'T DELETE THE WRONG ONE.  :>

response 131 of 257:

May 5 17:57 UTC 1999

Either remove the battery from the MB or thre is sometimes a jumper on the
MB to clear the bios.  Find out brand/model of MB and look on internet.

response 133 of 257:

May 6 06:48 UTC 1999

Definitely, if you can't get some sort of official blessing to install
linux, don't waste your time.  It is likely that the reason your DP
people have disabled floppies, is because of fear of viruses.  Your DP
people may not be able to tell you this, because chances are that they
actually only have 1-2 qualified people who really know what they are
doing, and the rest are just preaching "the company line" without really
understanding the why.  Your DP people are probably also organized to do
their work "most efficiently", which in many cases means they don't
always listen good to external (ie, "customer" input), and may not be
prepared to deal with "exceptions" (ie, anything that is different than
what they think you need.)

If the major reason you are doing this is because of personal reasons,
and your company isn't willing to invest in your education (some are,
some aren't), then you may well have no alternative but to find your own
personal hardware and install linux on that.  One of the nice things
about linux is that it *does* run on low-end hardware.  In the US, it is
not uncommon for companies to simply throw away perfectly good 386's and
486's that would run linux fine, because they no longer runs anything
the company supports, and isn't valuable either to the company, or on
the public marketplace.

If you can interest your manager or other powers in the company in your
project, then you have a decent excuse to "do this officially".  If you
can get someone high enough on your company to bang on the DP folks,
this may be a trivial operation.  There are, in fact, perfectly
respectable reasons for your company to be interested in linux.  It is,
after all, a lot cheaper than MS$, and makes a dandy web server,
database engine, or can be used for a variety of other non-sexy jobs
that MS$ doesn't handle nearly as gracefully.  If you can find a
specific such application, and your company has any interest at all in
saving $, you may well be able "underbid" your DP department by showing
that you can do this more cheaply than they can.  This will work best,
of course, if you pick a project your DP department isn't particularly
keen on, but that other people in your organization do care about.  If
you pick a project your DP department *does* care about, or if they are
worried about being out-competed by you and put out of a job, they are
likely to underbid you anyways, and eat the costs, or can come up with
all sorts of other good reasons why they and not you should win.

In addition to picking an unappetizing project, and sounding as
non-competitive with your DP department as possible, you may also want
to consider picking unattractive hardware.  For instance, if your
project is at *all* interesting to the company, it may be easier than
you think to include a modest hardware budget in that project.  $4K may
seem like a lot of money to you, but it may be less than the monthly
electric bill for electricity.  Now, with that $4K, you could buy an
awfully sexy pentium /// system.  But you might be better off ordering a
sun system (solaris), or a power macintosh system (mklinux or darwin).
The thing is, the pentium system could easily be converted to run NT or
to play awfully nice games on the DP chief's desk, and they know it.
Even getting this machine from the loading dock to your office, without
someone putting in a bios password and installing "the standard" stuff,
could be tricky.  The sun or macintosh will be alien stuff to them -- if
they don't want to learn linux, they certainly won't be interested in
these other machines.  Chances are good these boxes will make it to your
office with a minimum of mistakes.