*resolved* Ibm Thinkpad A31 Help Needed Please

Hi guys

First off, this is my first post so a BIG hello to you linux people out there!

I hope someone can help me, as the topic description says, Im a Linux noob, been using WindozeXP for years but a friend of mine convinced me to give OpenSuse a try. I prompty downloaded and installed it.

Managed to figure most of the stuff out from trials using a Virtual machine (eg Install a C++ complier, Python and so on) but Im having a few issues and I wonder if you can help me work through them?

The USB ports on the laptop are broken, my son damaged them (he's only 1 so it's a forgivable event ) so I have to use a Port Replicator for the USB ports. Now, the laptop is fairly old and only has USB 1.1, when working under Windows, I installed a PCMCIA USB2 host controller card, which all works fine and dandy.

The problem is I don't appear to be even getting power from any of the ports, either on the P/Replicator or the PCMCIA card Do I need to manually "start" the USB ports on the computer and the PCMCIA card? If so, HOW??!


Thank you all for any suggestions/replies, have a good christmas (for those who celebrate it!)
Regards


Badger
Edit: Im using OpenSUSE10.2

ok so i made some progress; i have some usb powered lights which i disconnected from the hub and from the port replicator, connected them to the PCMCIA usb card and they worked !!!

the next thing i tried was connecting the lights to the rear on-board usb slots and they also worked.
i figure that the port replicator usb ports are not enabled or detected, but as the on-board and pcmcia slots work, it's not a major problem.

so this thread can be closed with the solution being "the port replicator usb ports are not supported" (if anyone cares hehe).