[lug] CD-R drives?

[jkarns]

On Wed, 20 Oct 1999, Michael J. Pedersen wrote:

>Avoid Compaq if you ever want to install Linux.  I think the same is true of
>Dell and Gateway.  They put their BIOS on a special partition of the hard
>drive, making it all software, which sucks royally.

I don't know about their desktop machines, but they seem to have finally
seen the light regarding portables.  No hidden partition on my Presario
1687.  Although I think the BIOS does leave something to be desired
(Phoenix) - it's kind of minimal.  What I do like about it is that it
offers CPU throttle options of None, Basic (50%), and Full.  These take
effect during CPU idle time.  At 50% the machine runs noticeably cooler,
with the fan running much less often and battery life almost double.

Compaq also seems to be using what I assume is a more conventional memory
mapping scheme.  I had all kinds of trouble on an older Presario laptop,
especially with the CD-ROM drive and the PCMCIA controller.  I know that
Compaq used to have a proprietary mapping scheme for their video on the
older models.  Maybe they just got tired of having to modify every OS type
and revision so that it would run on their machines.

I have installed SuSE 6.2 with X and am happy with it.  My biggest problem
is having the (Synaptics touchpad) PS/2 mouse cursor jump around the
screen under X.  I suspect that this problem is not Compaq specific, but
due to the characteristics of the device.  I did find a beta vesion of a
Synaptics driver on the net for Linux, but haven't tried it yet.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
John Karns                                       jkarns at atlas.csd.net