Hello everybody,

Perhaps this question could sound quiet basic for the most of you, but I'm sure that is also one of the biggest interrogants for those ones planning to install Linux, and it's as follow,

What I'm most afraid before install Linux on my laptop concerns to the energy management system, I just got a Compaq Presario V5204NR (with a Celeron codename YONAH installed, 533 mhz bus, etc...), and with it I purchased a Suse distribution, the last one, 10.1, but I have been looking for some information that could make me feel more confident about the good performance and the integrity of my laptop. I'm afraid that if the system is not compatible with the energy management system it will make the fan works wrong, at wrong speed that could be eventually produce system crashes or even toast my cpu. The reason why I bought the Suse is because I'm an ex-mac user (399 usd the laptop plus 59 of Suse can't be compared with the 1099 usd of the cheapest macbook) and I won't use the embedded windows, the gap is too large.

Can I, or whoever who reads this thread, even though some compatibility issues can occur, be sure that the laptop won't die installing LINUX? and the power management will work as well with it do on the OS that is was intended to?

Thank you in advance + Many Regards

ricardoph

For some time I ran an old Presario 1246 wilth Linux. Started with Slackware 9.1, which took some tweaking, then upgraded ins stages to 10.0. That was replaced by Kubutu, and at present it has 5.10. All the time, the APM worked fine. Fan management was at least as good as Windows 98SE, power saving settings worked (using the tools from KDE). To begin with I had to manually compile in the necessary modules.

I now have an Acer TravelMate 2304WMLI (built-in modem, 10/100 Ethernet & WiFi, 1.3Ghz processor, 512Mb Ram, 60Gb HDD, Intel 855GM/GME graphics). I started with Kubuntu 5.10, upgraded to 6.06. Also tried Mandriva 2005 & 2006, and now run Suse 10.1. All had good power management, and no real problems.

I moved away from Kubuntu, because although it worked fine, I needed a proper root log-in, and it had trouble working with the widescreen display. The Mandrive & Suse installs both set the display up correctly without and tweaking - it is 1280x800.

I am very happy with Suse, and like the Yast system managment tool. It was a bit flaky to begin with, but that was a problem with the initial 10.1 release, and that is now fixed. I'm working on a description of what I did to get my system running, and will post it to the Acer pages when it's ready.

As far as I can see, distro's with kernel 2.6.x all do power management properly. The only differences may be in what configuration tools you get with the desktop manager. I prefer KDE because it allows me to stay away from the command line. KDE 3.5.x has nice tools for setting pwoer managment, and it even has a "lid closure" function - I've got that set to lock the display and stay running. There are also some 3rd party tools available. I'm sure once you choose a distro, you can get help here or on LinuxQuestions.org.

If you are nervous I suggest downloading a Live distro and trying that first. I've done that with each distro I've tried so far, and it is a great feature of Linux.

Good luck.

__________________
Best wishes

Sadiq
London, UK

One thing you might have to do to get things working is patch your DSDT (part of the ACPI stuff)
you can read about it here: Here.


And there is a great tutorial on getting suspend to work in that wiki too.