RedHat 9 on Compaq Presario 2516EA

Hardware

. Intel Pentium 4 @ 2,53 GHz
. 512 MB DDR PC 266 MHz (2 x 256 MB)
. 40 GB Hard Disk EIDE, ATA 100
. TFT XGA 15''
. ATI Mobility Radeon M6-C/P (Radeon IGP 345M RS200/RS200M)
. Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-R2312

Configuration State

XFree86	OK	-
Sound	OK	-
Network	OK	-
USB	OK	-
Keyboard	OK	-
Touchpad	OK	-
ACPI (energy management and more)	OK	Kernel patch
NTFS partition read	OK	Built in kernel. If you need a patch go here
CD recording	OK	X-CD-Roast 0.98alpha14. Get it here

RedHat 9 Installation

The installation must be launched with:

linux nousb

Otherwise you won't be able to use the keyboard during the installation process.
I tried to use the Portuguese language during installation but it always crashed. Had to use the default one: English (USA).

When asked for the video card and monitor type choose VESA Driver (generic) 64MB and Generic Laptop Display Panel 1024x768.
If you didn't do that or want to change your monitor/video card:
" Start Menu" -> System Settings -> Display
In the advanced tab you can change it.

ACPI

In order to see the battery state, Battery Charge Monitor 2.2.0 (a Gnome applet):

right click on taskbar -> Add to panel -> Utility -> Battery Charge Monitor

It won't work until the acpi patch is installed.

ACPI patch installation procedure (Kernel 2.4.20-8):

You must have the kernel source installed (something on /usr/src/linux-2.4 or /usr/src/linux-2.4.20-8).
Download the patch from here or from here.
The one I used was acpi-20021212-2.4.20.diff.gz.
Unzip it typing:
gunzip acpi-20021212-2.4.20.diff.gz

Patching the kernel

As root type:

cd /usr/src/linux-2.4
patch -p1 < <path_to_file>acpi-20021212-2.4.20.diff

Compile the kernel:

As root:

cd /usr/src/linux-2.4
make clean
make mrproper
make oldconfig
make xconfig
Now click on Load Configuration from File (lower right corner) and enter the filename:
/usr/src/linux-2.4/.config
Choose under General setup-> ACPI Support (bottom) ->
enable ACPI Support
enable AC Adapter
enable Battery
enable Button
enable Fan
enable Processor
enable Thermal Zone
save and exit
make dep
nohup make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install
make install
make clean

Now reboot and choose the new kernel in your boot loader.
I might happen that you will get a kernel panic on booting. To fix that edit the file /etc/grub.conf and where it says something like
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8custom ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
change it to:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8custom ro root=/dev/hdaX hdc=ide-scsi, where X is the number of the partition (1,2,3,...). You can get that number using fdisk (fdisk /dev/hda) or in Gnome:
" Start Menu" -> System Tools -> Hardware Browser then click on Hard Drives.

At this time the battery applet in Gnome should be working, as well as fn+F1 and fn+F2 (screen brightness).
You can type some command lines to see the battery state like:
cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature
cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info
cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state

Power Off

The ACPI patch solves the power off problem. Once installed, when you shut down the computer, it turns off automatically.

Files

My kernel config file for kernel 2.4.20-8 (/usr/src/linux-2.4/.config) is here.
My kernel config file for kernel 2.4.20-20.9 (/usr/src/linux-2.4/.config) is here.

Links

Redhat 9 on Compaq 2541EA.

Mesquita (aka Fly)
Email (please replace -at- with @ ; this is just to prevent spamming): amesquita-at-netc.pt

3^rd March 2004 version
Online since 14^th July 2003