[ltp] Washington Post article Linux on TP600

[James Holden]

Quoting David Margrave <davidma@eskimo.com>:

> Well, I'm hardly concerned that some computer column guy who has never
> touched anything non-MS has a bit of trouble with linux.

Quite. If you've anly ever driven an automatic, you're bound to wonder what the
gearstick (gearshift for you USA ppl) is for.

> What I'm more interested in is how you got the suspend/resume working
> flawlessly.  Did you use the tpctl utilites or whatever?  I kind of lost
> steam after getting the modem, ALSA, and the lucent wireless card working.

Well, I don't bother with the modem althouhg I have had it working in the past,
since I always connect via a LAN.
The sound has never been a problem. I'm using ALSA. I'd send my modules.conf but
I'm working on a different PC now. (My TP is at work capturing packets from my
errant netware box!)
I never did anything special really. I'm currently using Mandrake 8.2 though.
Tpctl is very useful, but I find that it's better to set the serial/parallel
port parameters persistently using PS2.EXE so that everything is already set on
bootup, rather than having an init script do it. I hope Mr Hood gets that one
figured out soon!

> I still need to tune the HD sleep interval (I think using tpctl and not
> hdparm), and also get suspend/resume working.  That would be great.

You won't get the hd to stop spinning if you're using a journalling filesystem,
well not without a lot of mucking about which would partly defeat the point of
journalling anyway.

> I've put so much work into this that I don't want to upgrade to a newer
> version of RH and go through it all again!  I have a TP600 with an upgrade
> to 20GB HD and 288 MB memory.  I bought it used within the warranty
> period.  It has been back to IBM twice, but since then, no problems.

Same here. The IBM service was great IMHO. I don't mind too much if things go
wrong, but IBM managed to sort things out with an absolute minimum of fuss. Well
done to them.

[snip]

James

-- 
James Holden, Leeds, United Kingdom
james-at-microcosmos.co.uk
In a world without boundaries, who needs Gates?

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