Summary of FOSA 340S2 linux config lessons: It actually weighs 7.5 lbs, not 6.5! The video, ethernet, sound and IDE controller are all handled by the SiS 630 chipset. Basic installation was easy because the entire hard disk was detected by fdisk, and fips can be used to split the Windows 98 partition. It doesn't have very good APM support, although power-on-suspend and battery charge check work. The battery life is adequate, about 2.2 hours with moderate load, 3 hours with very light load, and 1 hour under heavy load. I found that APM worked vastly better if I modified the APM driver to assume the BIOS supports only 1.1, not 1.2, as it has been detecting. I added a few lines to /usr/src/linux-2.3.40/arch/i386/kernel/apm.c: + * Crude fix for the Fosa 340S which is detected as BIOS version 1.2 + * but is actually a 1.1 BIOS. + */ + if (apm_bios_info.version == 0x102) + apm_bios_info.version = 0x101; /* * Fix for the Compaq Contura 3/25c which reports BIOS version 0.1 * but is reportedly a 1.0 BIOS. Sound is partially supported with the trident module, which needs no config parameters and is present in 2.2.18 at least. Sound is rather low quality, especially through headphones, because it suffers from extraneous noise. My workaround for background noise through headphones is to use a pair with volume control, and keep it turned down. Sound through the speakers sounds great. Using the standard trident support in 2.2.18 or 2.4.1 you get occasional static as the sound driver loses synch with the data stream. This can be fixed by going to kernel 2.3.40, as suggested on the SiS web site. The ethernet works trivially with the sis900 module. Video is something of a problem, although the chip is detected by the XFree 3.3.6 SVGA server, it is difficult to find a working mode, and the text console is always corrupted. Here is the mode that worked once for me: Modeline "1024x768" 75.00 1024 1184 1320 1328 768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync With XFree 4.0.2 the text console isn't corrupted, but I was unable to find a working modeline. I first got X working with the frame buffer server with standard VGA Vesa modes. Slow, but it works. In order to use the framebuffer server, you need to have a framebuffer enabled kernel and pass "vga=791" to the kernel. I do this with my /etc/lilo.conf: append="mem=119M" boot = /dev/hda delay = 50 vga = 791 image = /vmlinuz root = /dev/hda2 label = linux other = /dev/hda1 label = windows table = /dev/hda Remember, after changing your /etc/lilo.conf type "lilo -L" as root to install it, and then reboot. If you don't see a cute penguin logo on the upper left corner of your high-resolution text console, then you need to compile the kernel to enable the framebuffer. The modeline seems to change depending upon the choice of NVRAM allocation. I am using 8MB at the moment. Finally I decided that I wanted a proper X-server that supports the chip, so I downloaded the patch from the Silicon Information Systems web site in Taiwan and built XFree 4.0.1a. This works, doesn't corrupt the text console, and runs much faster. Here is the modeline that works with 4.0.1a: Modeline "1024x768c" 65 1024 1032 1176 1344 768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync Note that this also needs the VESA framebuffer console in order to work properly. I did have a configuration error because the Xserver was looking for rgb.txt in /usr/X11R6.4/lib/X11/rgb, instead of /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb. A symbolic link fixed that. For sucessful X, it is best to define the pointer as GlidePointPS/2. PS/2 works erratically, especially with KDE acceleration turned on. You may download my X configuration file from: http://strike.colorado.edu/~sjg/XF86Config. I was plagued with random crashes until I figured out that the APM version was not getting detected properly. This machine would probably run better with ACPI support, but it does not yet work with linux, so I have used APM and software suspend to disk. The power-on-suspend mode lasts only 6.5 hours, and suspend to disk is unavilable from linux. I found this unacceptable, so I installed swsusp and patched a 2.2.18 kernel and sysvinit 2.76 specifically for this purpose. I also had to install an older c-compiler, gcc-2.7.2.3, in order to compile it. It appears to work quite well, and will make this machine useful when power is unavailable. In order to use swsusp I needed to enable the magic sysrq key and modify /etc/inetd.conf to stop running identd. Identd doesn't suspend well. The builtin modem ought to be supported by the pctel driver, but I have not yet gotten that to work. hdparm does permit me to spin down the disk, but the screen does not blank properly with APM. It also appears that the CPU isn't clocking down when unplugged. It clocks down if you set the BIOS fan mode to "silent" instead of "performance", but I am still not certain it is a speedstep CPU as advertised. I got word direct from the helpful folks at FOSA, saying that it definately is a desktop CPU, and should never have been advertised as a speedstep. Just another mistake made by Egghead, where you seldom get what you pay for. If you are configuring a FOSA laptop and want more info, feel free to email me.