Quote for Install

[Enmity]

Is there any individuals or businesses interested in doing a basic install on my laptop for me so that all hardware and basic stuff works? I am located at Albury-Wodonga, Australia, but could enable a ssh server and have someone hack away while I am connected at a internet cafe. Reply or PM me with a quote.

I have a Thinkpad T22 2647-4EA with a semi-broken install and the more I try and fix it the more I break it, and without internet access I can't afford to break it beyond useability.

With much fiddling I got the gui and sound to work, but still can't get wifi or power management suspend to work, nor am I able to hook my usb mp3 player up to it or my digital camera. I boot up off a knoppix CD and all this works beautifully, even get a little icon pop up on the desktop for the USB device. How much would someone charge to get all this working with Gentoo for me?

It would be nice if there were places that sold laptops with Linux pre-installed instead of Windows. I know this goes against the whole point of choice and personal configuration but would sure help us linux numpties out there.

Thanks!

Mick
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www.bash.org

[Headrush]

Maybe even better for you, check out this: http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/ibm.html

There is a Gentoo on a T23 post and several from other distros for T22, but it should provide you enough info to get everything working.

[Enmity]

I read the install write up for the T23 and mostly went over my head. I am OK at following step by step instructions like in the Gentoo install guide but most instructions, like the T23 page, assume too much presumed knowledge.

I am sure there are lots of people that would like a bit of cash and also help out.

Mick
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www.bash.org

[mark_alec]

I would recommend that you post any problems that you have or things that you don't understand (after searching) so that the community here can help you for free. You may also consider trying a different distribution as gentoo may not be the one for you.

When I started out, I too asked for someone to install gentoo for me, but I persisted and now I can install gentoo with almost no problems everytime. While things may seem like they go over your head now, after some persistence and time they will become almost second nature.

[Enmity]

I really don't know where to start...?

I am trying to compile a new kernel, following the kernel compilation guide, to get my USB working with hard drive devices. I am pretty sure last time when I installed with gentoo 1.4 I did not compile in SCSI hard drive support needed for USB to detect devices like mp3 players and camera's that show up as hard drives, so I am trying to add that to the kernel. The kernel compiles no problem, copy the image to /boot and add the line to my grub.conf. Now I had to change the lines in my fstab to read /dev/disks/disk0/part2 instead of /dev/hda2, otherwise my laptop would not boot up one time after an emerge --sync. In the grub.conf I have tried ../disk0/part2 and it kernel panics with error of can't find partition, so I use /dev/hda2 for the grub kernel line and it works but halts trying to fsck the root partition and don't know how to get it to continue past that. I put in the root password and do fsck /dev/disks/disk0/part2 and it works, but can't continue the init process. I tried a few things, like init 3 or /rd.d/init sys or somthing similiar, but got the error of /proc already mounted and reboots.

So, am out of my depth really, don't know what to do.

Any help much appreciated.

Mick

[mark_alec]

It sounds to me like you have not set up your boot devices correctly. Could you please post your /boot/grub/grub.conf and /etc/fstab. You should also boot from the gentoo cd and post which device you did/can mount at /mnt/gentoo.

[Enmity]

Still in hospital so it is hard to upload all my .conf files.

I have done a bit of futzing with it and had some progress. I changed the symlink of /dev/hda? from /dev/ide/bus0/... to /dev/disks/disk0/part? and now does not kernel panic when booting to the new kernel.

It still hangs trying to fsck the partitions, but pressing CTRL+D continues boot. It doesn't up load up gdm for some reason but logging in a cli seems to work fine.

Like I stated originally, it is an old Gentoo 1.4 build originally that has been continually updated. When Gentoo changed over from devfs to udev I didn't do something right and it seems to have fscked up my whole lappie. If I got the old kernel to run ok surely I can compile a new one to get usb, power management and wifi to work.

/dev/disks/disk0/part1 is /boot
/dev/disks/disk0/part2 is /
/dev/disks/disk0/part3 is swap which does not seem to be working either.

So - what is my Question? Where do I start to get my laptop working properly?

Mick

[Headrush]

[Enmity]

No, this is an old install. I am pretty sure it was Gentoo 1.4 I installed about 2 odd years ago when I got the laptop. I am trying to get USB, power management and wifi to work, and just upgrade the kernel.
The laptop is a work in progress that has been in various stages of broken since installing linux =) but would realy like to get everything working, but it seems the more I try and fix stuff the more things become broken.

When I get out of hospital I could back up and try a full install from 2006.0 where I can follow instructions, but would like to learn how to diagnose and actually fix things one day...

Now, I can't possibly type out the whole dmesg from my laptop here at the hospital net cafe so will just give the error message I am getting on boot.

* Failed to calculate module dependencies [!!]
* Checking all filesystems ...
fsck.ext2: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/discs/disc0/part1
/dev/discs/disc0/part1:
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device ...etc

THen..

*Fsck could not correct all errors, manual repair needed [!!]
Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D to continue):

Any help why the drive path is doubling up?

Mick