Hello all,
I’m relatively new to Linux, having worked with Windows in my PC repair business primarily, i got interested in Linux about 3 years ago when my girlfriend Kasumi recommended it to me. I never really thought about it, as i’d heard lots of people having driver and program issues, and as my Windows knowledge is like the back of my hand, i didn’t really bother. She uses RedHat, but as we like to program, and i use lots of different programs, she said OpenSUSE was the best, it has lots of programs out of the box, and recommended 11.1 a few days ago.
I’ve just done a refurb on an Advent 7036 (Medion MD41086). It is the Athlon64 version of its WID/WAD2000 Range, there are several flavours of P4/AMD in the same chassis.
I installed it with Kas’s help, she knows about the different filesystems and /usr /var etc.
Here’s my laptop specs:
AMD Athlon64 3000+ (1800MHz rated clock speed)
512MB RAM (PC2700 DDR)
30GB Toshiba hard drive (IDE) 5200rpm
ATi Mobility Radeon 9600 64MB
Pioneer DVR-K13A DVD-RW Drive (Non Stock, was originally Quanta CD-RW/DVD Combo)
Here are my issues:
- It runs very slowly
It seems to run as though it is running on a 166MHz fossil! Windows seems so much faster, even the 64bit version. I’m using the KDE 3.5 desktop environment. It lags on everything, and will grind away for about 3 minutes before i can do anything with it, or forcefully turn the machine off. The laptop is fine, she’s had a full electrical diagnosis, the RAM, CPU and HD are electrically and digitally sound. And i mean i’ve tested her with multimeters, oscilloscopes, the lot.
- The internal wireless card doesn’t work
This Prism card does seem to be recognised, but the card uses a hotkey. I’ve read that i could switch the wireless chip mode in Windows using the Windows driver, turn off the machine, boot into Linux, and it will work. I cannot try this as yet, but was wondering if someone could code an app that can switch the chip mode somehow?
The BIOS only has two options for the card, Last State (hence the chip mode switch requirement), or Off. I think this was largely due to Medion liking to be safe if the laptop was to be used on flights, you had to manually turn the card on.
I’m using a K-CORP KLG-520 (Atheros) PCMCIA card for now, and it seems to be fine, if not a little slow.
If someone can help me solve the speed issue, i would love to keep using SUSE, but may try other flavours of Linux if i cannot get anywhere. I will continue using Windows in my business, i cannot afford to have speed problems where the running of my company is concerned.
I’m quite an expert in this series of laptop, i’ve worked on and rebuilt a few, plus worked for PC World in the UK when they were in market. If anyone else tries one, ditch the stock TwinMOS RAM, it is absolute JUNK. The amount of times i’ve replaced it i could now be a millionaire if i had a pound every time!
I did select nearly everything for installation, but i’m not sure this could be the cause. I read up on, and was lectured on by the missus, about the ReiserFS, and its non-need of defragging.
Wow! If anyone can help, i’ll buy you a virtual beer! 