770z problems

[Paul Phillips]

So I picked up my 770z yesterday but as one might expect, I'm having
problems getting a happy linux installation.  I'm vaguely expecting X
to work without too many problems, but I can't get the serial port to
function, and I need that if I'm going to get any data on the machine
other than the OS I installed from cdrom.  (Well, unless I can get the
internal modem to work, but I'm not holding my breath there if I can't
even get the serial port going.)

I read all the linux-on-thinkpad information I could find and saw that
someone had made the serial port visible in linux by disabling shared
IRQ from win NT.  Unfortunately I have the Win98 (DVD) version and unless
it's awfully well hidden, disabling shared IRQ is not an option.  I tried
disabling nearly everything else that might ask for a COM port, but it
didn't make any difference.

Once the serial port works, I can hook up a modem, update the kernel
and X server, and generally solve all my problems, I imagine.  So far
the only major stumbling block was that linux only imagined 1023
cylinders on the drive, dropping it to 8 GB, when win98 saw all 14 GB.
fdisk allows you to force the cylinder count higher, so I did that and
everything worked OK from there.

All useful tidbits appreciated.  My wireless modem should be arriving
tomorrow, enabling me to go mobile, but I'd hate to be seen in public
using win98.  Thanks.

-- 
Paul Phillips      | 80 - Disco jet
Neuron Pyro        | 90 - Trained ninjas
<paulp@go2net.com> | 
+1 206 447 1595    |--------* http://www.go2net.com/people/paulp/ *--------