installing FC4 on p7120

just received my p7120 yesterday; my first fujitsu computer and i really like thus far. that can change though. i'm trying to install fedora core 4. the system boots to the dvd, i answer some regional questions, then it asks where the media is located. i chose "local cdrom" and it replies "unable to find any devices of the type needed for this installation type." i think the dvd/rw is on an sata channel, so i tried specifying all the different sata drivers but no luck. any ideas would be much appreciated.

 

Hmmm, is the computer not detecting that you have a DVD drive in the machine? (Attached properly hopefully).

Your best bet would to probably be just calling Fujitsu and speaking to a service rep. Or using the Fujitsu chat/e-mail.

Could be that the drive is not attached in the proper manner/use of wiring/connectors properly.

 

hey, many thanks for the replay. no, the drive is definately seated and recognized: i see it in the bios. it also boots off the dvd and starts the FC4 installer. i hesitate to call fujitsu just yet; the expected comment will be "we don't support linux; use xp" . i'm guessing either fc4 doesn't have the drivers for the sata used in the p7120 (which i would have expected to be the same as it's earlier p7000 series siblings). dunno

 

looks like i figured a way around the dvd drive. i created a fat32 partition and put the FC4 dvd iso on their. when FC4 asks for the media location, instead of selecting "local cdrom", i select "hard disk", then specify the partition and directory. seems to have worked....so far. it's still a serious problem though if linux can't see the blasted dvd drive. hopefully it will sort itself out once installed.

 

Hmmm, ya, will be interesting to see the results. Keep us posted. So how is the P7120 so far? What are the specs. Seems to be a nice ultra-thin notebook.

 

it installed fine; took forever because i was unpacking from an iso (i assume). on first boot, the speakers let out a wicked squeal. i discovered that tilting the monitor affected the sound. it was feedback between the mike and speakers; the initialization opened the mike. anyway, once logged in, i muted the mike and subsequent reboots haven't produced a squeal. the one upside is that the sound does work. in the dozen installations of linux i've done since redhat 4.1, this is the first one to have sound work out of the box. it is however, also the first to not recognize the cd/dvd out of the box.

to answer your question: the p7120 is a really nice piece. sturdy, ample ports, great screen, very usable keyboard. i got the p7120d with 1gb, 60gb, dvd+/-rw.

i'll keep searching for ways to get the cd/dvd recognized...

 

following up. on a linux forum someone suggested trying ubuntu or knoppix, just in case it was a distro-specific problem. it is. fc4 and knoppix don't work; ubuntu (the live version) finds the cd/dvd and launches fine. i'm relieved this isn't a hardware peculiarity that would take a year for the open source community to catch up with.

 

Good to hear.

 

anyway you are better of with ubuntu ... probably there is a work around the problem for the other distros, but ubuntu is pretty nice to use and I have yet to have any hardware detection problems with it on different types of machines.

 

followup: pclinuxos p92 live worked also.

 

it's tempting but i've been using RH for my research since v4.1 (1997) and have upgraded through the versions. i am reluctant to switch distros then find i have to spend hours/days figuring out what development apps, libraries, and legacy stuff are missing, yada yada. if worse come to worse, i'll have to switch though.