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Want to run Linux on your Micron Transport? |
Maik Röder just sent me email to inform me that the Shinada Business Class P120 is the same as the Micron Transport and the info on this page will also work. The XF86Config and the fix for the floppy both work. Thanks Maik!
My Micron Transport came with Windows 95 loaded. If you want to leave Windows 95 on your system make room for linux using FIPS. It works just fine. Info for doing this comes from the Linux+Win95 mini-HOWTO.
Currently I have Slackware 3.1 running and everything seems to work fine. If you are trying to install Slackware 3.1 you will have trouble during installation with the floppy drive. Thanks to Alain Knaff I can now get the root disk mounted. The fix is to enter "ramdisk floppy=nofifo" at the boot prompt. After you install linux remember to recompile the kernel and update the necessary files, lilo.conf, to reflect this change, floppy=nofifo, so your floppy will continue to work.
I put the Slackware distribution on my Zip drive and used the bootdisk with Iomega Zip Disk support. If you need the Zip Disk drivers for Windows 95 grab them from the Iomega FTP site. You can also load from a CDROM if you have one. I would but I am waiting for the new distribution to become more stable.
When I installed Slackware 3.1 I didn't do anything special. Everything loaded just like it would have on any desktop machine with an IDE drive. I got the 2.0 gig upgrade from Micron so now I have a 32 meg swap partition, a 850 meg Linux partition, and a 1.2 meg DOS/Win95 partition. I put the Linux partitions first on my hard drive because I wanted to reload Win95. The load of Win95 that Micorn put on the drive seemd to have problems anyway.
Doug Dyer wrote this about installing from a CDROM.
Oh and btw for those that want to use a cdrom for installation I had to use the sanyo.i image for the initial installation procedure in order for my cdrom drive to be identified. Don't use that image except for the initial setup image.
Steven A. Reisman sent me this for all those suffering with the video blackout problem on the Transport XPE.
I've made some progress with my Micron Transport XPE. The Linux boot code doesn't know about the Cirrus 7555 video chip. It identifies it as a Cirrux 54xx. The code saves the current video settings and mis-initializes the chip causing the screen to blank. When I hit CTL-ALT-DEL, the saved video settings are restored during shutdown which turns the screen back on.
To work around this problem I disabled SVGA video configuration by changing an #ifdef in "arch/i386/boot/video.S". Here's a patch for 2.0.31:
--- video.S.orig Tue Nov 4 11:52:38 1997 +++ video.S Wed Nov 5 09:23:25 1997 @@ -6,13 +6,13 @@ ! ! Enable autodetection of SVGA adapters and modes -#define CONFIG_VIDEO_SVGA +#undef CONFIG_VIDEO_SVGA ! Enable autodetection of VESA modes
The mouse on the Micron Millenia Transport is PS/2 compatible. When you compile the kernel just add support for the PS/2. If you run gpm you need to kill it's process if you want X to run.
Here is a working copy of my current XF86Config. I am running the SVGA server in a 800 by 600 mode. This XConfig was sent to me by Chris Aquino. THANKS Chris!!!
I have PCMCIA Card Services working with a Megahertz XJEM3288C combo Ethernet/Modem PC card. I have the modem and the ethernet working just fine. I disabled my IRD port to stop a interupt conflict that was causing everything to fail. Make sure you compile in serial support in the kernel. In my /etc/pcmcia/netwok.opts file I used the IF_PORT="auto" so the card would auto detect the type of ethernet connection.
Locate anx download the current version of card services. Also the Linux PCMCIA HOWTO contains lots of great info for anyone setting up card services.
If you have had success with other types of cards and have helpful information please feel free to mail me.
I will soon be working on these issues. I have received a lot of mail on them and know that they work. I just need more time to fiddle with them.
I am bummed out because DOOM crashes the machine...
Thanks for all the GREAT feedback that I have been getting.
Please mail me with other relevant links.