You'll have to configure the x server. What you'll need is to find out the exact chipset of the lappy graphics. And hopefully using the config tool during the install, you be able to choose the correct drivers.

No you won't you can do a text install and have it autodetect your gfx card.

I used to do this all the time on kickstart installs.

Also if you are not sure of your exact chipset, setting the driver to "vesa" will work fine for 2d stuff.

Installing it on a laptop?! Talk about a baptism of fire!

Was there anything in particular you wanted to learn about Linux? After all, it's just an OS so you'll need to decide want you want to install. Of course, if you're doing things properly you wouldn't bother with a graphical interface

Chris

Command line is something i want to learn as well, but slowly lol

No you won't you can do a text install and have it autodetect your gfx card.

I used to do this all the time on kickstart installs.

Also if you are not sure of your exact chipset, setting the driver to "vesa" will work fine for 2d stuff.

Er he did this and got a black screen straight after it "auto detected the chopset". Read the whole thread.... thats why he's try the txt route.

Command line is something i want to learn as well, but slowly lol

Slowly? Nonsense! :P Along the way, I suspect you'll also see a lot of my editor/shell/x-windows is better arguments. Just to set the record straight, these are the best and anyone who doesn't agree must be a quiche-muncher....

vi

ksh

kde

Enjoy

Chris

Er he did this and got a black screen straight after it "auto detected the chopset". Read the whole thread.... thats why he's try the txt route.

Look mate. I did read the thread so don't get all arsey with me.

Kickstart is an automated linux install for redhat/fedora that can run in text only mode or gfx mode.

If you do a text install it will automatically try and detect your chipset, and won't try to boot into it during the installer, unlike the gfx installer. At that point it will install, you will get into the installed linux and then the X server will often just work or need a slight tweak.

I've done it enough times that I think I can speak with a degree of certainty on this.

Think your getting the wrong end of my stick cheezy.

What I'm getting at is the auto detection doesn't work. For a newby trying to figure it out the config files is "fun" to say the least. If you know the exact chipset you can manually choose a better option. The basic gui installer uses a pretty basic gfx driver.

It's when it tries to auto detect a higher spec one for rest of the install that it falls over.

Thus the txt install suggestion. I'm not saying your wrong, but this area is bread and butter for me... it's what I get paid for at the end of the day.

Well, Its installed.

I cant get my wlan card to work (its an arathos or something) nor can i get my video card to be recognised by Linux - infact it got upset so i had to reinstall it.

Any ideas? Video is an S3 Unichrome thing.

What laptop are you trying to install it on? There's usually a fair few Linux fan sites which'll have hints and tips for specific machines to get them up and running.

Chris

I personally would have run it in vmware at first. I am going to have a play with PC OS Linux via vmware as it looks interesting. I used to run Kbuntu for ages the only reason I stopped and went back to windoze was due to usb issues with my camera,video camera and external hdd.

Its a Fujitsu Siemens L7310

try Fujitsu Siemens website. They may have a host of linux drivers for you to download. Failing that the manufacturers of each component may have them.

try Fujitsu Siemens website. They may have a host of linux drivers for you to download. Failing that the manufacturers of each component may have them.

no linux option on their site lol

As mentioned eariler, you will get the same learning experience using VMware Server (free download and use) on a Wintel machine. And with a static driver set linux will install on it with out any problems.

I'm not getting confused, if you run the installer in text mode, it will detect your chipset without trying to boot the installer into it. If it can't decide on anything it likes it should default to the "vesa" driver which works with almost everything on the face of the planet.

If you want, send me your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and I'll fix the video driver for you.

As for the atheros wireless try this:

madwifi.org - Trac

FedoraForum.org - Fedora 8 and Madwifi Atheros WiFi (It Works)

NDIS Wrapper bits here:

FedoraForum.org - View Single Post - Ndiswrapper crash DWL-G510 Rev B., Fedora 8

or some unofficial RPMs not needing NDIS wrapper here:

Fedora People

Madwifi/Atheros Wireless Linux Driver Users Guide

Out of interest could you boot the installer using the `linux vesa` incantation as mentioned in my PM?

cheez & auroan what do you both do for a living? if you dont mind me asking?

Unix/J2EE Software Engineer (we work on accounts such as BAA, SKY, Channel 4, ITV, Wyeth, etc)

I'm not getting confused, if you run the installer in text mode, it will detect your chipset without trying to boot the installer into it. If it can't decide on anything it likes it should default to the "vesa" driver which works with almost everything on the face of the planet.

If you want, send me your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and I'll fix the video driver for you.

As for the atheros wireless try this:

madwifi.org - Trac

FedoraForum.org - Fedora 8 and Madwifi Atheros WiFi (It Works)

NDIS Wrapper bits here:

FedoraForum.org - View Single Post - Ndiswrapper crash DWL-G510 Rev B., Fedora 8

or some unofficial RPMs not needing NDIS wrapper here:

Fedora People

Madwifi/Atheros Wireless Linux Driver Users Guide

Out of interest could you boot the installer using the `linux vesa` incantation as mentioned in my PM?

I'm not sure on Mike's experience, but i agree that what your saying is what "SHOULD" happen, but it obviously isn't. Some distro do set the the environment post install to auto boot into either KDE /GNOME or what ever you use on top of your X xonfig. My advice was keeping it simple, I don't think a new user could make/build a binary install straight of ?

I have no experience at all.

something I NEED to put right before tomorrow LOL

Mate this is the best way to learn Linux IMO.

I battled with Mandrake for a while to get it working and learnt so much.

If you can find a good forum as well you wil be sorted.

Not that no one on here is unwilling to help you

Back to Windows XP for me it seems!

Fedora will not boot after the initial install.

PoS.

have a look at something different then mate.

Ubuntu is worth a look, as is Mandriva

have a look at something different then mate.

Ubuntu is worth a look, as is Mandriva

I guess the problem is if the underlying screen drivers are not available then different distributions won't make any odds and the only one I found with a reference to that laptop was openSUSE (marketed as the most user friendly version of Linux) and even that required some jiggery pokery to get it working.

IMHO, you're best off finding an old desktop PC and installing a distribution on that. Everything will be detected and work out of the box.

Chris

Or VMware, with that you can snapshot the machine before you do any "playing" Then you can rollback the snapshot if you can't fix what you've "played" with

I guess the problem is if the underlying screen drivers are not available then different distributions won't make any odds and the only one I found with a reference to that laptop was openSUSE (marketed as the most user friendly version of Linux) and even that required some jiggery pokery to get it working.

IMHO, you're best off finding an old desktop PC and installing a distribution on that. Everything will be detected and work out of the box.

Chris

Not really as when i had a normal PC latop before Redhat was a no go but Mandrake had the driver so worked fine

I'm a senior software engineer and currently mainly works on embedded systems including embedded Linux.

Plenty of writing C and a to a lesser extent these days Java, plus bits of systems design and integration, project management and testing.

Also voting member of the PCI Special Interest Group and seem to be one of works Linux fix it people.

Eg too much work!

AngryDog, like I've said on PM, if you set the driver to VESA it works.

You confirmed this did work, so if you were to get it to that state and send me your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and your screen res, I'll fix it for you so that the resolution of the graphics matches that of your laptop.

If it isn't a valid vesa mode we can either get close or just get the via drivers working. I've had the unicrome binary drivers working fine before.

You will want those if you're not going to use vesa modes:

VIA Arena - Display Drivers