Short Attention Span Theatre

Linux on Presario 906us

Had a bit of trouble loading linux on this one (Debian testing/stable). Here's how (this will be edited as I go).

When booting from Debian Woody CD1 use the following as your boot parameters:

bf24 video=vga16:off vga=ask nomce

For some reason, you will not be able to use your integrated NIC (Realtek 8139) when using the previous boot parameters, but don't worry about that for now. Install the kernel, device drivers and base system; then reboot. When you get to the LILO prompt, make sure to press the "?", then type:

Linux nomce

After booting from the hard drive you will still not be able to access the network. Switch to the second console (tty2 - use Alt-F2) and login as root (should be able to login without using a password at this point):

# echo "# The built-in NIC" >>/etc/network/interfaces
# echo "auto eth0" >>/etc/network/interfaces
# echo "iface eth0 inet dhcp" >>/etc/network/interfaces

After that your NIC is ready to com­mu­ni­cate with a DHCP server (if you don't have one, or you want to setup a static IP, then do that instead). Just type the following:

# /etc/init.d/networking stop && /etc/init.d/networking start

Switch back the tty1 (Alt-F1) and you're ready to continue the in­stal­la­tion.

Still having trouble with X-Windows (MCE again). I'm working on it, and will post results here.

Update: Looks like the problem lies in some items within the 2.4.21/22 kernel. I got frustrated, upgraded my debian in­stal­la­tion to SID/unstable, downloaded a vanilla 2.6.0.test8 kernel, tweaked it out with my options, and presto: I have X-Windows! Now, if only X-Windows didn't suck. ;)

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