[ltp] Mandrake 8.2 vs. TP 600e

[Steven Crane]

Well, guys can't say as I'm very impressed so far.

The installation manual seems to be a lot less than clear and several of the promised 
options were simply never offered. Doubling back, as the manual says you are free to 
do - to check the the lm-sensors package was not included in the install - created 
absolute chaos and I eventually had to resort back to the Redhat 6.1 installation disk to 
restore the Linux partitions.

The second installation seemingly worked fine for a couple of hours and then stopped 
recognising the root password. Pressumably I did something stupid, but I really have no 
idea what.

Third installation seems to be fine-ish. At least it is still working a couple of days down 
the line.

Not unexpectedly it has failed to correctly detect the Sound, Modem and Network.

More surprisingly I can't find the HOWTOs on any of the CDs. Must be here 
somewhere but I'm not having much luck turning them up.

Installing and running "sndconfig" does get a response out of the speakers. The original 
WAV (?) playback is pretty garbled but the second MIDI sequence sounds perfect. The 
old IBM RH 6.0 instructions settings worked and they do include a warning that the 
sndconfig sample is garbled even when sound otherwise functions perfectly. Downside 
is that although, sndconfig obviously has access to the correct CS42xx driver, 
Mandrake itself is still attempting to use the CS46xx driver. It seems that I may well 
have all the pieces but they are yet to be correctly assembled.

The internal modem was always likely to be a bit of a problem, although one of the 
main reasons for choosing the 600e is the high number of reports that it WILL work in 
Linux... eventually.

The Network will hopefully prove to be fairly simple. The card is a Netgear FA411 which 
comes packaged with Redhat 6.1 drivers, but seems to be about the only manufacturer 
NOT listed within Mandrake. If all else fails, I can replaced the PCMCIA card relatively 
cheaply, but again indications are that it will work when I've had a bit more time to play 
with it. Not had time to study the Linux documentation that came with the card, so I 
may have the necessary answers to hand.

Okay, back to the books.

Any pointers, especially from anyone running a combination of Mandrake & 600e?

---Steven




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