[SMAUG] Caldera Workstation 3.1

[Rick Moen]

begin Calvin Chu quotation:

> I tried multiple combinations of BIOS settings, including completely
> disabling any sort of power down whatsoever, with no luck.  The model of
> Winbook is the Winbook XL 400Mhz AMD with 128MB ram, and 3 gigabyte hard
> drive, floppy, cd rom, 800x600 display, and I believe a Chips and
> Technologies 65554. 

That C&T chipset requires the "SVGA" XFree86 X server, by the way -- and
is a very standard chip, supported for ages.  (I'm mostly talking about
XFree86 3.x, and this is from memory, because I'm unfortunately pressed
for time.  If a distribution furnishes XFree86 4.x, it should simply
work.  I'm less familiar with v. 4.x.)

> I have a suspicion that the power management daemon was causing the
> lockups, but I couldn't find it in the process list.

I believe it's apmd.  

http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Laptop-HOWTO.html
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Battery-Powered.html

But I'd have been tempted to first go single-user ("init 1"), and then
start doing 'kill -9" on just about everything, to see if running just
the kernel, the init process, and my login shell results in a stable 
system.  That would be on a theory of narrowing the field of suspects.

> When starting X11, it gives a grey background with the "X" pointer in the
> center, and it stops responding to any input whatsoever.  What I mean
> by freeze immediately is no response to keys, the pointer does not
> move, nothing.  

Can you kill X11 using CtrlAltBkspc?  Can you change to a console
terminal using CtrlAltF1?

If you don't know, because you haven't tried yet, the correct answer is
"I don't know, because I haven't tried yet, but I'll give that a shot
when I have a chance, and report back."

When we're trying to do diagnosis, we don't make those suggestions (and
ask those questions) for our health, y'know.  ;->

> I ruled out hardware problems by test loading Windows and burning it in
> overnight, no issues.  

It's conceivable that you're seeing the power-management seize-up,
rather than a separate X-configuration-related one.  I believe you said
seize-up in ten minutes?

> How I verified the kernel was not seeing the PCMCIA 3C589D is when
> Caldera boots up, it indicates that no PCMCIA devices found, and no
> network card installed. 

I'd want to know what "cardctl ident" reports, post-installation.  But
it's possible, depending on the wording of the error message (which
unfortunately you did not quote) that the installation kernel's PCMCIA 
support code doesn't recognise your laptop's PCMCIA chipset at all.
In which case, the issue wouldn't be your 3C589D.

> Where can I find information on the SVLUG installfest?

On SVLUG's Web site, of course.

http://www.svlug.org/
http://linuxmafia.com/bale/   (My calendar page.)
http://linuxmafia.com/cabal/installfest/  (Worthwhile reading, related
   to a different InstallFest.)

-- 
Cheers,      "Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first 
Rick Moen     woman she meets, and then teams up with three complete strangers
rick@linuxmafia.com       to kill again."  -- Rick Polito's That TV Guy column,
              describing the movie _The Wizard of Oz_