  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  This document may be outdated or some other document on this topic may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
  <http://www.LinuxDoc.org/> 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 <http://www.LinuxDoc.org/> 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.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-08/lw-08-linmodem.html>

  ·  http://www.linmodems.org/ <http://www.linmodems.org/>

  ·  http://www.close.u-net.com/ <http://www.close.u-net.com/>

  ·  http://linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/ <http://linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/>



