Linux and the CTX EZ772 laptop
Please note that the CTX computer that I installed Linux on was merely
a loaner machine. I no longer have access to this machine.
The install went perfectly because I had a 20x instead
of a 24x CDROM. If you have a 24x CDROM drive, I can not help you install
Linux on your CTX machine.
Many moons ago, I was given a CTX EZ772 MT-MK laptop at work to install Linux on. Since this particular CTX has a 20x CDROM instead of the broken 24x CDROM (Again, email asking me about 24x CDROM problems will be unanswered) the install was nearly seamless, with only some minor obstacles:
- The touchpad is a standard PS/2 (
/dev/psaux
) mouse. - The CD-ROM is a standard IDE CD-ROM. Important: My make and
model uses a 20x CD-ROM drive. I have multiple reports from the
internet that RedHat Linux will not install from a 24X CD-ROM drive.
I have one report that changing the file
ide.c
in the kernel source to ignore a status of0x50
allows Linux to use the 24x CD-ROM normally. Another report say that the code in question is:...return 0; #ifdef CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDECD if (drive->media == ide_cdrom) return 0; else #endif /* CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDECD */ ide_error(drive, "status error", stat); return 1;
at the end of functionide_wait_stat()
.Note: This is a kernel change that can only be done after you have sucessfully installed Linux using a hard disk or network install.
If RedHat 6.0 works (or doesn't work) with a CTX with a 24x CDROM, please let me know.
If you have a CTX system with a kernel image that works with a 24x CDROM, please email me the kernel image in question. This way, I will be able to give non-C-programmers a working kernel, allowing them to use the 24x CDROM in their CTX.
- The video chipset is a NeoMagic chipset. This is not a problem, thanks to
RedHat making available drivers at:
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/XFCom/
Note: This FTP server is very busy, and it may take multiple tries to get these files
- The PCMCIA slots are not visible to older versions of the PCMCIA software
suite. This is only a problem with people installing older versions of
Linux, and can easily be fixed by downloading and installing packages
from here:
ftp://hyper.stanford.edu/pub/pcmcia/
- Suspend functions do not work--they do nothing. Then again, I have not compiled a kernel with APM support on this laptop yet.
I have a report from the 'net that the CTX EZ774MTFK (20X CDROM) installs without any problems.