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Reiy's Laptop

FOSA 1100

Red Hat 6.2 Installation

First the obligatory DISCLAIMER:

***DISCLAIMER***

Basically, everything here worked for me but I cannot guarantee that it will work for you. The information here is provided AS IS, with no warranty of any kind, yada yada... I cannot be held responsible for any damages/death/destruction of your computer, your brain, your significant other or your lack of one, etc. resulting from the use of this information.

Now on with the installation...

The first thing to do is to RTFM (Read The F***ing Manual) accompanying your Red Hat distribution. It can be found on the Red Hat CDROM under /doc. The Official Red Hat Installation Guide walks you through all the steps in the installation so I will not waste my time or yours by repeating it here. What I'll be doing instead, is highlighting the parts of the install that is specific to the FOSA 1100.

Keyboard Configuration

The default values here worked fine for me so I see no reason to change it.

  • Model - Generic 101-key PC
  • Layout - U.S. English w/ISO9995-3
  • Dead Keys - Enable dead keys

Mouse Configuration

You can choose:
  1. Generic 2 Button Mouse (PS/2) OR the Alps GlidePoint (PS/2) if you are planning to use the touchpad or plug in a 2 button PS/2 mouse. Either works with both. Select the Emulate 3 Buttons option (Strongly recommended).

  2. Generic 3 Button Mouse (PS/2) if you have a 3 button PS/2 mouse like me. The touchpad will still work in this case. There is no need to unselect the Emulate 3 Buttons option because you might still need it when you use the touchpad.

I've not used a serial mouse on this before so I don't know what'll happen if you choose a serial mouse. My guess is that the touchpad will stop working but I don't know for sure. If you've tried, tell me :)

Partitioning

This is a hard one. There is no one right answer as to how best to partition your disk. Trial and error until you come up with one that suits you. Then participate in various debates to try and force it down some other newbie's throat :)

Alternatively, you can skip this entirely by choosing options other than Custom in the Install Options. Refer to the Official Red Hat 6.2 Installation Guide for details.

Here's mine anyway. I used Disk Druid and I recommend you do too, unless you absolutely KNOW what you're doing.

Mount Point Device Requested Actual Type
/mnt/C hda1 1000M 1000M DOS 16-bit >=32M
/ hda2 1M 4745M Linux Native
Swap hda5 128M 128M Linux Swap

Note:

  1. Red Hat will mount partitions from Windoze if you specify a mount point like I did. I do not know if it applies to other operating systems like NT or OS/2. I've never used them.

  2. You can choose the Grow to fill disk option to easily take up any remaining disk space.

  3. My swap space is 2 times my RAM. This is the "Rule of Thumb" from an unknown thumb. You do not have to follow it. Again, trial and error. I also believe the previously advertised 128M swap limit has been overcome so you can go as high as you want. And don't believe anyone else that tells you otherwise.

  4. You do not usually have to worry about the Device column, Disk Druid will automatically fill that out for you.

  5. I did not reserve an extra partition for the Suspend to Disk function that the FOSA 1100 is capable of. I use Suspend to RAM instead. But if you need to do this you can visit Bryan's page.

X Configuration

Finally we come to the traditionally most difficult and dangerous part of the whole install -- configuring your monitor for X. Be sure to read my DISCLAIMER before you continue ;)

Monitor - Generic LCD Panel 1024x768

You will see that the default values for the Horizontal and Vertical Sync ranges are very low so I do not believe it will blow up your monitor, but we've all heard of Murphy... So be sure to double triple check your values.

If nothing goes wrong, X should autodetect your videocard and tell you it's the S3 ViRGE (generic). If you're like me and hate the term "generic", you can choose S3 ViRGE/MX from the list. Double check the amount of video RAM you have. I have 4096k but I do not know if all FOSA 1100's are made the same.

Next you can choose your screen resolution and colour depth. I have both 8- and 16-bits at 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768. Choosing more than one will allow you to switch modes when you are in X by pressing Alt-Ctrl-'+' or '-' later on.

I haven't been able to get 24-bit working at any resolution but Bryan has, so do check out his page. Unfortunately, he uses rather high frequencies and I am not very sure if my monitor can handle it in the long run, so I've decided not to go with it.

This is it. Congratulations if you've successfully installed your very own Red Hat Linux. Otherwise, take the laptop back to your dealer for repair if you can still find your warranty card ;)

If you have any problems/suggestions feel free to email me and I'll see if I can fix it. At the least I'll listen (and ignore).

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Page last modified: 26 August 2000
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