*BSD News Article 80142


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.hardware
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From: steve@starport.COM (Stephen R. Savitzky)
Subject: Re: FreeBSD & XFree86 on ThinkPad
Sender: usenet@starport.com (news)
Lines: 45
Organization: Grand Central Starport
Originator: steve@central.starport.com
Message-ID: <STEVE.96Oct5235350@central.starport.COM>
References: <52q926$q78@scream.auckland.ac.nz> <52rm3a$a4l@helena.MT.net>
	<32535A20.25A3@synergy.net>
In-Reply-To: "Richard T. Robino"'s message of Thu, 03 Oct 1996 00:16:00 -0600
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 06:53:50 GMT
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:28771 comp.os.linux.hardware:52520

In article <32535A20.25A3@synergy.net> "Richard T. Robino" <rrobino@synergy.net> writes:

   Nate Williams wrote:
   > 
   > In article <52q926$q78@scream.auckland.ac.nz>,
   > Peter Dobcsanyi <P.Dobcsanyi@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
   > >Dear *,
   > >
   > >I am planning to buy an IBM ThinkPad 365X notebook computer (Pentium
   > >100, 16Mbyte RAM, SVGA dual-scan). What are my chances to install
   > >FreeBSD / Linux and XFree86 on it?


   *** lengthy post, sorry ***
   I am in the middle of finding/installing some decent implementation of unix on my 
   older Thinkpad and have been working on getting linux up on mine for about a 
   week. I am having a difficult time with RedHat Linux,

I recently installed RedHat Rembrandt (beta) on a 755C.

   1. If the new Thinkpads are like the old ones in this respect: disk
   geometry, find out from IBM exactly what the heads, cylinders, and sectors
   per track are _before_ installing - it may save you making a root disk.

Use the Linear global option to LILO.  This works even if Linux and the BIOS
disagree on the disk's geometry.  Just make sure the root partition is in the
low 500Mb.

   > >I also would like to have a PC card Ethernet+Modem, what model should I
   > >buy?

I have an IBM PCMCIA Ethernet card and modem, both work fine with the drivers
RedHat has in Rembrandt.  I imagine that the IBM combo that's being heavily
discounted these days would also work.

   2. Hard drive installs are the easiest for those of us without a local CD
   drive ...

I installed using FTP from a local system; of course NFS would also work.  A
previous attempt at an FTP install directly from RedHat's site on the Internet
failed miserably--the install script isn't very robust in the face of FTP
timeout errors. 

The Debian  distribution has a small editor (I forget its name) on the install
disk; it can help get you out of lots of tight spots.
-- 
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