thanks to a few sources on the net concerning models of this ilk, i was able to gather how to get this bad boy working. I think i’m the first on the Net (that’s searchable at least) to deal with RH9 but i used people’s problems installing/running RH8 as a basis.
First off, i had to wipe everything and install from scratch, to have a dual-boot system. Partition magic just wasn’t working for the kid–it wouldn’t partition properly (upon the reboot & partitioning process it would report errors). grrr…it wasn’t too big of a thing, since i just got the laptop and losing stuff wasn’t problematic. so i basically destroyed everything by repartitioning my drive using the ‘cfdisk’ tool. i made a 40gig xp partition, 18 gig linux partition, the rest swap. as i’m slowly finding out though, i have less absolute need for a larger XP partition, as linux has come a Long Way since slackware 0.2, and even since redhat 7/8 (my most recent linux installs, on some desktops at my old job). it’s best to go ahead and install windows XP first, and use grub on your RH install, since grub will pick up all your other partitions and place them in the boot config. grub is pretty, and works nicely.
Symptoms:
disc 1 loads, but hangs on “loading ohci1394 driver….”
looked this up, and got several suggestions, ‘linux nousb’ etc…the one that actually works (and makes the most sense anyway but how was i to guess this off the bat…:)
linux nofirewire
so now when RH9 install loads up it won’t probe (and subsequently hang on) the firewire port on your laptop. okay install goes fine and dandy. upon reboot–hang like a mug! argh! it installed a kernel that is looking for the driver?! not exactly; i found out that kudzu is the cause of the problem…sooooo….okay…solution:
continue to hit ‘I’ like crazy (for interactive startup) when it asks you to when linux is booting…then when it asks, don’t load modules. After you boot up, you’ll have to turn off kudzu for all subsequent boots. just use ‘chkconfig –level 3 kudzu off’ (and if you’ll eventually be running X win ‘chkconfig –level 5 kudzu off’)
make sure in your grub.conf you have ‘nofirewire’ option at the end of whatever options grub sets up for your booting to the linux partition.
word so you got it booted. in the next writing i’ll hit you up with a quick post on how to the get X running shiny and nice….then there were issues getting my windows XP reinstall working properly too that i may want to address, for the dual booters!
as a side note–during my installs, i gave up on RH and did slackware 9 instead–the install works right off the bat–but the reboot is what killed me–i presume that after a slackware install and you’re returned to the command prompt–find out where your boot up will try to load the firewire driver (ohci1394 is about the best hint i can give), and disable it (in the correct runlevel ;), BEFORE you reboot again.