Re: avoiding installation woes

["Kevin D. Colby" <kevin marcal com>]

>I am contemplating purchase of one of two Thinkpad 560s for installation of
>RedHat 4.2:
>either with the proprietary IBM SCSI CD-ROM or a Sony 6X device.  Both
>would have the Megahertz 33KB/10baseT dual modem/ethernet PCMCIA card
>(XJEM3336 I think the number is).

I believe the XJEM series works well under Linux currently.
Since it is a combo card, check in the PCMCIA combo card compatibility list.

>I'd appreciate hearing of any experiences people have had (a) running Linux
>on either of these MMX chips; (b) hardware incompatibilities with CD-ROMs;
>(c) problems accessing both modem and ethernet functions; (d) anything
>else!  

!!!  WARNING  !!!

The IBM MWave modem, built into most newer Thinkpads will NOT work.
As of six months ago IBM was still refusing to release _any_ information
on how the MWave chips work and how a Linux driver could be written
for them.  I personally confirmed this with IBM at that time.  If you, or
anyone you know would like this to work, or at least wants specs released,
call Mike Merod at IBM.  He is the MWave contact person, and can be
reached at 919-543-1713.  I'm sure he'll appreciate your call...  ;^)

>Having had problems with supposedly compatible hardware the last time has
>made me a bit more wary, and I've found very little besides Kei's video
>driver trauma experience in the archives.  I'll summarize responses and
>post to the list.

There are some weird things about them, but video up to 800x600 seems
to work on most models.  If they are shipping the 560s with new video
chips, I don't know anything about that, but an older one here works.
Oh, and get the TFT (Active Matrix) screen.  The Dual-scans usually
work, but require more configuration and are simply not as good.

>Thanks for your help and happy Thanksgiving,

I did.  Thanx!  ;^)

        - Kevin Colby
          kevin marcal com