The strategy for HDD partitioning will depend on whether you want to dual-boot Window XP and Linux, or run with Linux only. The features of this laptop are quite well-supported by Red Hat Linux 9.0: the only "problematic" hardware being the Infrared port. With all the excellent Open Source applications now available under Linux, there is really no need to install Windows, unless your PC is connected to a Corporate "Microsoft standardized" network where Linux clients are not allowed...

 

How to set up a dual-boot Linux/XP system

If you really must have Windoze XP or 2000, there is a very simple way of cloning the ghost image from the Toshiba recovery disk, without dedicating the whole 38 GBytes of your hard disk to Bill Gates. The following steps will, however, destroy all the data on it, so please make a backup of your important files before starting any of this.

 

Insert the Toshiba "Product Recovery DVD-ROM" and switch the computer off then on, while holding down <Ctrl><c> until you hear "beeps". This will force the machine to boot from DVD-ROM.

When you get the RECOVERY UTILITY splash screen, hit <Ctrl><c> again: it will ask if you want to "Terminate batch job?" - hit <Y> and you should get a DOS prompt. Type CLS to clear the screen, CD TOOLS then FDISK to start the disk partitioning utility.

Enable large disk support, delete all partitions, and create a new FAT32 partition of 14503 MBytes. (Unfortunately, you cannot make the Windoze partition any smaller than this if you want to use the Toshiba ghost image. It still leaves you with a whopping 23 GB for Linux, which should be enough for most people...).

Make the new 14.5 GB partition active, and escape from FDISK. Switch off.

Switch on again, holding <Ctrl><c> as usual. When you get the RECOVERY UTILITY splash screen, select Option 1 (XP) or 2 (2000), it does not matter which. At the next screen, select Option 1 (Start Installation).

The Recovery Utility will then offer to reformat your entire hard disk - Option 1 (NOT A GOOD IDEA) - so please select Option 2 (Expert Mode).

When in Expert Mode, select (using the right arrow key) Local -> Disk -> From Image (Enter). You will see the available ghost images: S6K1ENP1.GHO (XP) and S6K1ENK1.GHO (2000). Choose whichever takes your fancy, press OK, and the utility will then offer to create a primary partition of 38 GB (aaagh!). You surely will not want this, so manually SET a new size of 14503 MB, OK, PROCEED = YES.

At some stage, it will ask you for a "Recovery CD #2" which you don't have. Just keep the DVD ROM in the drive and press OK.

When finished, reboot your computer from HDD and check that Windows XP (or 2000) starts up correctly.

Now you can install a serious operating system... Insert Red Hat Linux 9.0 Install CD #1, and reboot, holding <Ctrl><c>, then proceed with the installation. Unless you want something special, I would recommend that you select the "Automatic partitioning" and "Remove all Linux partitions" options, when prompted. This will leave your 14503 MB for DOS on hda1, and will create a 99 MB /boot partition on hda2, with 21.7 GB allocated to the / (root partition). /swap is on an extended partition, hda5.

Very important: If you want to avoid problems with Windoze trying to take control of your system again, please use the suggested boot loader (GRUB) and not LILO. GRUB has the unique advantage of being able to "spoof" MBR details, so that Windoze believes it is the only operating system on the planet. Let it believe that if it wants; it saves a lot of trouble!

Please also read the general comments on Linux installation, below.

 

 

How to set up a Linux-only system

Start the procedure from Step 10, above. The only differences will be no Windoze (hooray!) and the size of the / root partition, which will be about 36 GB.

 

Now, some general comments about the installation process.

 

It is probably best to keep your Ethernet port disconnected during installation: the Linux installer may try to auto-assign some unwanted network configuration.

Be careful about how you set the networking options, and be sure you understand the difference between DHCP and fixed IP addresses. It is also advisable to disable the firewall, at least initially.

When rebooting, the system MAY freeze on starting the interface eth0 - this appears to be an unwanted feature of Red Hat 9.0; I have not seen it on this computer with earlier versions of Red Hat Linux. Unfortunately, you will have to switch off if it happens, and re-boot.

The old problem with the USB controller freezing on restart is still there. When shutting down the computer, never choose the "restart" option - it will not work properly, and you will have to switch off anyway when the USB freezes...

If the screensaver comes on during Linux installation, you may find the display reverts to some stupid resolution, like 640x480. Switch it back to 1024x768 using <Ctrl><Alt><Fn><;> repeatedly until you achieve the desired setting.

The video chip used in the Toshiba 6100 is the NVIDIA GeForce 4 420 Go.

 

Depending on the exact model of 6100 you have, the video RAM may be 16M or 32M - check this from the specifications before going any further.

 

 

During RH Linux 9.0 installation, the chip is probed as NVIDIA GeForce 4 and the "nv" driver is selected.

The LCD monitor cannot be automatically probed, so use "Generic Laptop 1024x768", and accept the 24-bit colour depth suggested by the installer.

 

 

This invokes a generic NVidia driver with 1024x768 resolution: quite acceptable for most purposes. A basic XF86Config file is created in /etc/X11/. This sample file may be useful if you want to return to default settings later.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Installing the proprietary NVIDIA drivers:

For a really sparkling display, you will need to get the videocard manufacturer's Linux drivers.

 

Check this page for the latest drivers, but see the note below, first...

 

At the time of writing, there are all kinds of problems with kernel/driver/glibc compatibilities. For example:

Red Hat 9.0 shipped with a broken glibc, and you will not be able to run OpenOffice or xmms with the NVidia driver until you have updated your system using (e.g.) up2date or Ximian Red Carpet

If you run up2date as of today (07/07/03) the kernel will be updated to version 2.4.20-18.9. The NVidia installer "NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-4363.run" only seems to work with kernel 2.4.20-8 and below.

I am indebted to Alexandre (Sasha) Kozlov for his solution. Perform a full update using up2date or Ximian Red Carpet. Go to this site, and download the package compatible with your hardware/distribution. For example, if your kernel version is 2.4.20-18.9 (do uname -r to check) the correct file will be:

 

nvidia-graphics-kmdl-2.4.20-18.9-1.0_4363-11.i686.rpm

 

Install the package, and if there are no errors so far, change your default run level to "3" in /etc/inittab, make a backup of your XF86 Config (/etc/X11/XF86Config) and modify it as follows:

 

"Module" section:

 

Remove the line> Load "dri"

Remove the line> Load "GLcore"

Ensure you have the line> Load "glx"

"Monitor" section:

 

For a basic setup, all you need is:

 

Section "Monitor"

Identifier "Monitor0"

VendorName "Monitor Vendor"

ModelName "Toshiba 6100 LCD Display"

HorizSync 31.5 - 150

VertRefresh 50.0 - 100

Modeline "1024x768" 97.40 1024 1072 1192 1416 768 768 771 809

Option "ddc" "off"

EndSection

 

"Device" section:

 

It's very important that the Driver line is changed from "nv" or "vesa" to "nvidia". Also, remember to check the amount of video RAM you have, and decide whether you want BackingStore on or off. (Must be off if you are using Win4Lin).

 

 

 

Section "Device"

Identifier "Videocard0"

Driver "nvidia"

VendorName "NVIDIA"

BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce 4 420 Go"

VideoRam 32768

Option "BackingStore" "Off"

EndSection

 

"Screen" section:

 

You can add more modes as required, but note that each must have a valid modeline in the "Monitor" section. The "Virtual" line disables the display panning that would otherwise occur by default, and forces the driver to display everything within the confines of the screen dimensions.

 

 

Section "Screen"

Identifier "Screen0"

Device "Videocard0"

Monitor "Monitor0"

DefaultDepth 24

SubSection "Display"

Modes "1024x768"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 24

Modes "1024x768"

Virtual 1024 768

EndSubSection

EndSection

 

 

 

Once the modified file has been saved, exit the root account, login as a normal user and you can try starting the X-server:

 

$ startx

With a bit of luck, you will have a functioning display. If not, check the /var/log/XFree86.9.log file for pointers to what went wrong. Useful key commands at this stage are:

 

<Ctrl> <Alt> <BkSp> to kill the X-server and revert to text mode

 

<Ctrl> <Alt> <Fn> <;> to switch screen modes (if you have more than one)

 

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you make a mistake and get a bright white screen, kill the X-server immediately to avoid irreparable damage to the LCD display. All of the above instructions are given without any warranty. They may not work in your case, and worse, they may cause damage to your PC. Use them at your own risk!

 

Assuming the drivers have installed correctly, you can change your default runlevel back to 5 in /etc/initttab.

 

If it didn't work for some reason, all I can suggest is that you consult the Linux and NVidia Graphics forum.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Example:

Here is a sample XF86Config file to play with:

24-bit NVIDIA example

 

Copy this to your /etc/X11/XF86Config file, as appropriate, having made a backup first. Note that only the 1024x768 modeline is working properly at the moment - I will try to get the other screen resolutions later...

 

 

 

Note: If you have problems with a black line at the right hand side of the screen, try adding the following line to /etc/modules.conf :

 

options nvidia NVreg_SoftEDIDs=0 NVreg_Mobile=2

 

 

 

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External Monitor/TV settings

This is really difficult. The Toshiba 6100 hotkey display switch (Fn F5) is not properly supported under Linux, and the NVidia driver implementation supports it even less... Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any solution that allows monitor switching under Red Hat 9.0 with the NVidia 4363 driver! Please let me know if you can help...

 

If you do not mind using the standard Vesa driver at 16-bit colour depth, you can use an external monitor or TV by using the following procedure:

 

Ensure that you have Jonathan Buzzard's Toshiba Linux Utilities, which you can obtain here. The stable version of the utilities requires Toshiba Laptop support either compiled into the kernel or as a loadable module (RH9.0 default). Download the utilities tarball, copy to /usr/local/ and do tar -xvzf. Change directory to /usr/local/toshutils-2.x.x and follow the README for installation instructions. Note that "make install" creates the required special device files if they do not already exist.

The display switch in Jonathan's utilities only works on Libretto notebooks, so you are going to need another little utility named "Toshset" from Charles Schwieters. Copy to /usr/local/ and "untar" as you did in step 1.

cd to /usr/local/toshset-1.xx and follow the README for installation instructions. If you have Toshiba Laptop support compiled into the kernel (not as a module, which is RH9.0 default), you must change the Toshset Makefile so that the line "DEFS = -DUSE_KERNEL_INTERFACE" is uncommented. Failure to do this will cause Toshset to crash with a segmentation fault...Also, you may need to create 3 directories to prevent compilation errors. These are:

/usr/local/man

/usr/local/man/man1 and

/usr/local/man/man8

 

VESA 16-bit dual display

The trick here is to ensure that your monitor settings can apply equally to the internal and external monitors. I have used a very old monitor (Philips 105S) in this sample XF86Config running at 1024x768 pixels. Copy this to your existing XF86Config, having made a backup first, and re-start your computer with the external monitor plugged in.

 

Note: you can change TV regional options (PAL/NTSC) via the computer's setup menu by pressing <Ctrl> <Esc> immediately after switching on.

Login and use toshset -video both to enable LCD and external monitors simultaneously. This works in text mode or from an X-terminal. Other toshset options are int, ext, tv. You can try these, but "tv" will probably only work at 800x600.

Nick: kZo,kZo[home],kZo[work]

Name: Dallas

Location: USA, Iowa

 

Job: Network Administrator for hospital

Network Type: MS Network

Email: Redhat Linux 7.3

 

Just recently gave my resignation as the Network Administrator. Going to leave position here to work on a Server Admin Team for a corporate office in Iowa.

 

You can normally find me on IRC, efnet, #redhat #wipples #jumex and few others.

When starting kde on my system, (I use startx from the command line), I did not like the way that KDE would startup with a baby blue background and then transition to my configured background color. I wanted a way to make the color consistant from the start of the X server until my default desktop was up.

 

KDE starts with the command "exec startkde" usually found in ~/.Xclients-default or ~/.Xclients. "startkde" is a script that, on my system, is in /usr/kde/3.1/bin/ (your system may be different).

 

Within that script are the following lines:

 

test "$XDM_MANAGED" || bkg="-solid #000000"

xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr $bkg

 

As you can see, the startkde script uses "xsetroot" to set its initial color. I have mine set to "#000000" which

is black but you can set the color to anything you like. You can use a utility like "gcolor" to pick a color code that you like or you can use the utility here to experiment. [/url][url=http://www.imagitek.com/bcs.html]http://www.imagitek.com/bcs.html

Which Logos does anyone like?

 



 



 



 



 

How to I see what version of Kernel I have installed?

 

 

You should be able to see the version as a normal user, so open up a console.

 

Once done type uname -ar

 

you should see something like this:-

 

 

[anyweb@localhost anyweb]$ uname -ar

Linux localhost.localdomain 2.4.22-1.2115.nptl #1 Wed Oct 29 17:00:00 EST 2003 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

 

That tells me that my kernel version is = 2.4.22-1.2115.nptl.

Login as root by typing

 

su -

 

in a console. Once done type cat /etc/redhat-release

 

you should see something like this:-

 

 

[root@localhost root]# cat /etc/redhat-release

Fedora Core release 1 (Yarrow).

 

That tells me that I am using Fedora Core release 1 on this linux box.

Quote:please NOTE:- java VERSIONS change quite a bit, meaning that a line such as  

rpm -ivh j2re-1_4_2_02-linux-i586-rpm

 

may now have changed to something like....

 

rpm -ivh j2re-1_4_2_06-linux-i586-rpm

 

please MAKE SURE that you are rpm'ing the correct VERSION of software that you have downloaded otherwise your java plugin will fail to install. The instructions below ONLY refer to the version that I downloaded at the time of writing this howto, of course, versions have changed since then, and as a result, you have to adapt the instructions below, to match the new version of JAVA plugin that you are downloading.

How to change the default login to Xwindows to console or vice versa.

 

do as follows: open a console and login as

 

su -

 

then, as root type the following:-

 

cp /etc/inittab /etc/inittab.org

 

That has just copied (cp) a text file called 'inittab' to a new text file called 'inittab.org'. The reason for that is incase you accidently screw up the text editing that comes next ;-)

 

 

 

once done, type the following:-

 

vi /etc/inittab

 

that opens a pretty cool (or anal depending on how you think) console based text editor, and opens a text file. Use your up and down (and left and right) cursor keys to navigate the flashing cursor around this file.

Scroll down to the line that reads:

 

id:5:initdefault:

 

^^ yes that line there ^^

 

and change the number five (5) to a number three (3) so that it now reads

 

id:3:initdefault:

 

^^ now it's a 3 ^^

 

 

If you find you cannot type the number 3, try pressing the INSERT key on your keyboard. (hint: pressing INSERT will toggle between INSERT and REPLACE mode, also, pressing ESC will CANCEL out of those modes and allow you to enter commands).

 

Once you have managed to get the line looking like this

 

id:3:initdefault:

 

press ESC to get control back, and press

 

:wq

 

Thats right, just a colon with a w (to write) and a q (to quit)

ok, you are done !

 

now let's exit from X windows, easiest way is to reboot ! so go ahead and reboot, once you have rebooted you'll be presented with a console login prompt...

 

(to get Xwindows to load automatically at boot time change the 3 in /etc/inittab back to 5).