Mandrake 10.1 Official on an Asus M6842Ne notebook

Usage

I use this notebook mainly for work (network administration and web/database development), watching DVDs and listening to music. I use KDE as window manager, Mozilla Firefox for browsing, Evolution as email client and organizer, BitchX and Psi for instant messaging, K3b for CD/DVD burning, VLC for DVDs and Juk for music.

Operating Systems

This notebook runs Mandrake Linux most of the time, but I also use a partition for the preinstalled Windows XP Home and another one to test other distributions or BSD flavours. See below for details.

Partition

I use to install linux using only / and /home partitions, plus a big partition (/archivio) to store all data. The "data" partition comes useful to exchange data between different installations. The partition table is set as follows:

partition	size	filesystem type	linux mount point	usage
/hda1	8 GB	vfat	/mnt/windows	Windows partition
/hda2	4 GB	ext3	/	root partition ("main" installation)
/hda3	4 GB	ext3, BSD	/mnt/hda3, none	Tests
/hda5	1.5 GB	swap	none	common swap partition
/hda6	1 GB	ext3	/home	"main" home partition
/hda7	40 GB	ext3	/archivio	data archive

Mandrake 10.1 Official installation

As I subscribed to MandrakeClub as a Silver member, I could download the DVD ISO image of the Mandrake Linux 10.1 Official Powerpack via BitTorrent. Once burned the DVD, reboot with the DVD inserted, press F1 and pass "vgahi noapic nolapic" at the "boot:" prompt to enable a nice 1024x768 framebuffer console and to avoid a completely hanged system in the very first steps of the installation.

Language: English (American). To use Italian keyboard layout and country settings, I also click on "Advanced" and select "Italian" as additional language.
Accept license
Keyboard layout: select "Italian"
Security level: high (also set Security Administrator login)
Disk partitioning: see above for details
Packages selection: I use to deselect all package groups and check "Individual package selection". Then I check "With basic documentation (recommended!)" and "With X", toggle to "flat" packages view, leave "Show automatically selected packages" checked and check all the packages I want to use. Here is the complete list of the packages I add, accepting all dependencies
Accept installation of these servers: MySQL, openssh-server, nfs-utils, apache2, vsftpd
Install...
Root password
Add ordinary user(s)
Install bootloader: Install LILO in the MBR

Additional steps

After packages installation, I follow these additional steps in the "Summary" screen:

System
- Country: Other Countries -> Italy (changing country to Italy automatically sets timezone to Europe/Rome)
Hardware
- Printer: Select "Local CUPS Server", entering "Advanced" configuration and disabling CUPS server for remote machines. Entering "CUPS Configuration" asks for network settings: I only set parameters for eth0 (NetXtreme Gigabit ethernet) interface
- Graphical interface: Select "Flat Panel 1400x1050", and enable 3D acceleration on the autodetected "Radeon (fglrx)" card.
Security
- Firewall: Uncheck "No firewall" and select only the services you want to be visible from outside. Shorewall services now include BitTorrent, if selected during installation. Yay!!!
Boot
- Bootloader: Configure LILO unchecking "Enable ACPI" and checking "Force no APIC" and "Force no local APIC".
Services
- Services: Uncheck everything you don't want to start at boot.

First boot

At this moment, the only way to boot without hanging the system is selecting "failsafe" option from LILO, entering runlevel 1 and then passing

bash-2.05b# init 5

Urpmi

See Easy urpmi page for urpmi configuration or here for the steps you can follow. I use to store a local mirror of Mandrake 10.1 (except commercial packages) and Penguin Liberation Front packages, and I follow these steps to set up urpmi. Type

[root@localhost root]# urpmi --auto-select

and your RPMs will be up to date. After updating the system the default LILO option, "linux", works OK.

Wireless networking

Not tested yet.

X.org

This is the auto-generated xorg.conf configuration file.

TODO list

I still have to test ACPI (it's very likely that I will have to use a DSDT table in the initrd), firewire and modem.

I hope you will find some of these information useful. If you have any suggestion for helping me to get everything to work, please email me.

bibe AT atworkonline DOT it