All, I am new to this newsgroup, so I apologise if you already know about the issues mentioned below. I am sharing my experiences with Mandrake 8.2 Beta 2 in the hope that it may become easier to install on laptops in the future...
Sony PCG-Z600NE --------------- This machine has a PCMCIA CD-ROM drive with 128MB RAM and USB floppy. Booting with ide2=0x180,0x386 succeeds in loading the installation GUI and all goes well until it comes to selecting packages. It can't find the rpmlist -but from the error message this is not immediately obvious. Repeating the attempt in text mode reveals that it can't find the pcmcia drivers. So how does it succeed in loading the GUI installer in the first place? Why are the pcmcia drivers not detected/included? Having to resort to a disk install, I copy the contents of the two disks onto one of the FAT partitions, each disk under a different directory. Thank GOD the USB floppy works! Unfortunately, the disk install wants all files under one directory, so I have to re-boot into windows again, and manually merge the two directories. Why can't the installer ask for the location of the second directory? It manages this OK with CDs. Anyway, this time it manages to install the packages. Unfortunately, the machine hangs during the network configuration stage. Having re-booted, I then go into maintenance mode and have to configure X (NeoMagic NM2380 MagicMedia 256XL) and the networking manually (pain). Also, it appears that none of the GUI tools set NETWORKING=yes in /etc/sysconfig/network so one has much fun trying to work out what's wrong with it all. Setting up a new user -why can I no longer select the user id from userdrake? This is definitely a retrograde step. I need to have my user ids vaguely in step with other systems so that I can occasionally do a NFS mount (without the hassle and boot delays incurred using NIS). Back to the command-line then. Having set up my X preferences (Gnome and Enlightenment), I can't get the sound to work. The mixer works fine (turn the mike gain up and you get acoustic feedback), but no audio output from Gnome/Enlightnment/xmms. The chip is a Yamaha YMF744B [DS-12]. I'm still working on this -any ideas? Clevo 2700C ---------- This is an unusual beast with the SiS 630 Chipset, 128MB RAM, but with a built-in CD and floppy. This install, at first, seems much easier. It installs straight away -until it comes to setting up X. The Mandrake installer prompts you to use XFree86-3.3.6 with or without an accelerated driver. Glad that it has detected the SiS chip and being brave, I choose the accelerated option and promptly get a solarising screen followed by a sure hang. Oh dear, re-boot. Again in maintenance mode, I manage (eventually) to tweak things so that X starts in some recognisable form but the screen "shimmers" and will not switch back to text mode, so you're stuck in X. Much hair-loss later, I find an example XFree86-4.x configuration on the SiS web site. I delete the silly resolutions from the file and Bingo! XFree86-4.2 works without the "shimmering" and returns back to the console. The only problem I have with it is that xosview appears in the wrong colours -anyone have any ideas as to why? All other applications so far seem OK. Again, I can't get the sound working (SiS 7018). Guys, this has to get better. Edward Tandi. _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
