I started out with Mandrake as my first Linux distro. I had never used Linux before and was
thinking it was going to be really hard.The first time I installed it, I put Mandrake on an
old Acer with 32MB RAM and a 200mhz AMD K6. It installed fine but the performance wasn't that great. So I decided to install Mandrake on my Toshiba Satelitte 1800 4K1 laptop. It's much newer with a 1Ghz celeron , 128MB RAM, and a 20GB HD. So I searched the web for a while wondering if anyone has yet to install Linux on a laptop like mine.
I'm sure someone has installed Linux on a laptop like mine but I couldn't find any pages where anyone had documented it. So I was thinking, this is going to be a mess. When I installed windows 2000 on it and ddidn't have the drivers for the display etc, etc.. it was pretty bad so I thought this would be an interesting adventure. So I put the first CD in and started the install. I had already installed Windows 98 SE and partitoned the hard drive with a 5 GB partition for Win98 and the other 15 GB for Linux. The install goes smooth. It actually installed better on my laptop than any other previous computer I had attempted.
Of course I did run into a few small snags. As far as the dual boot with 98 goes, thats a peice of cake, used LILO as the boot loader and everything went well there. Of course my internal modem doesn't work but it may possibly, I haven't tried to get it to. I connect through another computer on my home network so its not a big issue. The display seems to be alright, except when I scroll down a page on the web or something, it seems slow and doesn't display the stuff well when moving the screen at all. At first I thought this was a driver issue (and it still may be) so I tried a few different drivers with it and they all do about the same thing. I'll work it out someday. The sound is working great, thats good becuase I had significant problems with it on other systems. I am having some trouble getting my ALPs touchpad to work. From what I understand, it isn't that difficult to get an ALPs touchpad to work with Linux so I'm sure i'll do that soon enough. I'm using a Logitech optical USB mouse and thats working great. I've noticed on some of the message boards that some people have experienced problems with some distro's and these mice, but mine works great, and the wheel too. The power management for the batteries seems to work good, and my internal network card is working well too.
I'm hoping to install Debian 3.0 in the next couple of weeks and take Mandrake off, so i'll keep this page updated as I do this. I am also hoping to install Slackware 8.1 soon too. I'll definatly be doing the Debian but Slack might have to wait awhile.
All in all , things went pretty smooth installing Linux on my laptop. I hope anyone who reads this finds it useful, and can benefit from my experience. So if you're debating
installing linux on a Toshiba like mine than go for it. It's a breeze.
If you have any questions or comments you can email me.