Mandrake 10.1 Official on an Asus A2810SBH 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 burning, VLC for DVDs and Juk for music.

Operating Systems

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

Partition

I use to install linux using only / and /home partitions, plus a big partition (/data) 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	3 GB	ext3	/	root partition ("main" installation)
/hda3	3 GB	ext3, BSD	/mnt/hda3, none	Tests
/hda5	1 GB	swap	none	common swap partition
/hda6	1 GB	ext3	/home	"main" home partition
/hda7	40 GB	ext3	/data	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" at the "boot:" prompt to enable a nice 1024x768 framebuffer console.

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
Accept installation of these servers: apache2, mysqld, nfs-utils, proftpd, sshd
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: Italy (changing country to Italy automatically sets timezone to Europe/Rome)
Hardware
- Printer: I use to enter "Advanced" configuration, disabling CUPS server for remote machines.
- Graphical interface: Select "Flat Panel 1280x1024", 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. Yay!!!
Boot
- Bootloader: Configure LILO forcing no APIC and no local APIC.
Services
- Services: Uncheck everything you don't want to start at boot.

First boot

I reboot and kernel 2.6.8.1-12mdksmp loads without big issues (see dmesg), except for an ACPI error. I am trying to fix it, news will be available soon.

Urpmi

See Easy urpmi page for urpmi configuration or here for the steps I followed. 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.

Wireless networking

The wireless card works perfectly using ndiswrapper and the Windows XP drivers shipped with the notebook. You only have to install kernel source package, and follow the ndiswrapper documentation. As of today (October 28, 2004) the latest stable version is 0.11. Follow these steps:

[root@localhost root]# cd /usr/src
[root@localhost src]# tar zxf /path/to/ndiswrapper-0.11
[root@localhost src]# cd ndiswrapper-0.11
[root@localhost ndiswrapper-0.11]# make install
[root@localhost ndiswrapper-0.11]# ndiswrapper -i /path/to/bcmwl5.inf
[root@localhost ndiswrapper-0.11]# ndiswrapper -l [ this should say: bcmwl5 hardware present ]
[root@localhost ndiswrapper-0.11]# ndiswrapper -m [ this adds a line to /etc/modprobe.conf ]

NOTE: I still have to post information on how to load automatically the driver, since it seems that Mandrake doesn't take care of "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" line in /etc/modules.conf

X.org

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

TODO list

I still have to make ACPI work properly out of the box, and post information about asus_acpi (to use leds and quick launch buttons), 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