Linux on Armada M700

[Guest smoke611]

Hardware

Compaq armada M700 p3 850, 30GB Hd, 256 ram, lucient winmodem(on board), ati 16meg mobility pro, intel nic(on board)

 

Software

9.0 (natch)

 

Dual booting with WinXP

Multiple FLAWLESS installs. Everything from standard to pick your own.

 

Issues

1. Winmodem; took about a half a day research, here and everywhere, finally figured out that the standard drivers would not work for me and that compiling my own worked EVERY time. GOOGLE is your friend :)

 

2.Sound; terrible, loud screeching noise the first time pc boots up @ the same time ALSA is comming up. Have to hit my "FN" key 5 times to activate the function controls then hold down "fn" key and tap the volume control key, f5 for me, then hit the <-- direction control key. After you are booted into the desktop, KDE for me, go to Mandrake control center-->hardware and scroll to sound card and click "configure". I do not know what this does, but it says it changes the driver from old maestro driver to snd-es1968.

 

3.Network and internet connectivity; I have a small network @ home with a Win2k storage pc that is also used for sharing an internet connection. No problems accessing any of the shared drives on the "server" Just went to Mandrake CS-->mount points-->samba mount points-->search servers. It shares my internet connection with no additional work.

Sometimes if I leave all of the drives in automount status, I have NMB & SMB errors @ shutdown, so usually I just make mount points but mount them only as needed.

 

4. I usually work with my laptop w/o the floppy attached and the cd in the modular bay, in this config, if you try to to browse the quickbrowse-->root-->mnt, the desktop locks up. If I have the floppy attached and the cd in, everything functions as intended.

 

5. Guard dog firewall is easy to use! But nothing is free from effort. Remember, GOOGLE is your FRIEND. Read and use common sense. If a program does not function correctly after installing, find what port it is using and make sure it is open and accepting communication. For instance, I had to configure port 119 in guard dog to get my newsreader to come online. I am fully cosed or stealthed for all ports @ grc.com

 

6.Palm was just about a no brainer, but to get palm link to see my Evolution conduits, I had to uninstall then reinstall Evolution. J pilot worked out of the box.

 

7. GOOGLE, the message boards, and the How To's are your friends. Almost anything can be found with a little effort. As soon as I find a good personal finance program I will be able to MS free!

 

Eddie

[spiedra]

Good for you on wanting to be M$ free. About your palm seeing Evolution, you didn't need to uninstall and reinstall Evolution, you just had to install the Evolution conduits available on your distro.

 

Google is indeed a good friend. I've solved a lot of problems using Google.

 

I had problems with my winmodem, the driver didn't work with my kernel. I just replaced it with a serial modem.

 

I uninstalled windows several months ago. I figured might as well because I haven't boot into it for 6 months.

 

Right now I am tri-booting Mandrake, Libranet, and BeOS. Mostly i've been using Mandrake, but lately i've been using BeOS.

 

The only time I use windows is at work. Over there everything runs on windows. I also use a Mac there running OS-X.

 

Yes, it's good to be free from the grip of M$.