Updated 3-18-00. Please see theUpdate section at the end of this
document.
Disclaimer:
This page has been written to direct other Linux users to the resources that helped me in the intimidating task of installing Linux on the Satellite 2105 CDS. Although my experience has been very good, and surprisingly uncomplicated, I cannot vouch it will be equally painless for anyone reading this report.
There is no claim on my part that you will have a safe installation by merely following in my tracks. Your system might behave differently. On the other hand, I hope this page proves somewhat helpful.
My Installation
I managed to install Red Hat 6.1 on my Toshiba at the end of December 1999. The installation was unexpectedly simple; I used Partition Magic to open some space on the FAT32 4 G. disk, and I found myself with a 1.5 G Linux partition. Beyond that delicate step, I was guided by similar Toshiba entries at the linux-laptop page, and the very useful information at this page , an unofficial support site offered by Toshiba.
There is an entry for the modem with a link to the Lucent binary experimental (sic) driver. It has been working very well for me, although I wonder what pitfalls might be hiding behind the term "experimental."
There is also an entry for sound support with a link to their German site; from there you can reach (click on Linux, then on News) the entries for the sound drivers, the X configuration file (you might have to add the line Option "noaccel" to the Screen section on the XF86Config file to prevent flicker) and, again, another link to the Lucent winmodem driver.
By following their directions, I have a system with sound and modem functionality.
I don't use any PCMCIA cards, therefore I can't comment on support for those devices.
In addition, there is a download page with utilities to control the fan, and other goodies. This page is also unofficial, but everything seems to work for me.
Lastly, I have been using a set of utilities to monitor laptop settings like battery life, charge status, etc., from KDE. They seem to work well and can be found at download sites like TUCOWS.
Update (3/15/00)
Mandrake 7.0 has replaced RH6.1 . The installation program was impressive: it managed to detect everything (sound, mouse, video) without any difficulty.
However, the machine froze repeatedly at boot time while loading the PCMCIA services. As a result I had to deactivate the service while I researched the problem.
After some illuminating web searching/reading, I found that
getting into the BIOS and setting the card bus to PCIC-Compatible (instead
of Autodetect) allowed the PCMCIA service to be loaded normally.
As for hard disk performance, I have been using hdparm -k -m
16 -c 1 -d 1 -u 1 /dev/hda with good results. As usual, these settings
work for me, but I can't guarantee they won't give your hard disk
a case of amnesia. Careful.
All in all, Mandrake 7, downladed from Mandrake, seems to like this
machine, and the machine returns the favor. It feels nimble (much more
so than RH6.1) and, so far, stable. Gone is the flimsiness and the tendency
to corrupt the hard disk that I had experienced with the previous
Mandrake distribution.