I'm trying to get Linux (Fedora Core 6, specifically, but saw all the same issues in Ubuntu) running on my brand-spanking new Sager 5760. It's a wonderful machine and runs almost everything superbly. However, I'm having a few problems and was hoping someone out there has already worked through these.
1. DVD drive disappears. When I use grub as the bootloader, the DVD drive is not visible in Windows XP or Linux. If I switch to using NTLDR before grub, it's visible in XP but still not in Linux (as it still has to go through grub to get into Linux). I get an "I/O resource 0x1F0-0x1F7 not free" message in dmesg, as well as the same message for 0x170-0x177. And before anyone does a google search on the error message, yes, the ide driver is loading before the ata_piix driver.
2. Wifi is horrible. Using the latest ipw3945 drivers, the laptop wants to be within 5 feet or so of the access points to work semi-reliably. But even then, it doesn't always work right. If I am more than 5 feet away, it's very random as to whether it will even see the access points (usually not) and connecting almost never works. I have also tried ndiswrapper, but that only succeeds in hanging the computer, requiring a hard reboot. BTW, everything is sweet as candy in XP so I'm assuming this is an OS/driver/config issue.
3. Touchpad can't be configured. This wouldn't be such an issue if I could just make that infernal tapping "feature" go away. Has anyone found a driver that works with this thing? It is not a synaptics-compatible device. It is made by ElanTech, and I haven't been able to find even a hint of linux support for it.
Other than those 3 headaches, I LOVE this computer. If I can't get these things working right, I'm going to have to return this magnificent beast, and that royally sucks.
I originally posted this over in the Sager area, but bigtrouble77 recommended I plop it over here as well.
Anyone have any help they can offer? Thanks in advance!
1. DVD drive disappears. When I use grub as the bootloader, the DVD drive is not visible in Windows XP or Linux. If I switch to using NTLDR before grub, it's visible in XP but still not in Linux (as it still has to go through grub to get into Linux). I get an "I/O resource 0x1F0-0x1F7 not free" message in dmesg, as well as the same message for 0x170-0x177. And before anyone does a google search on the error message, yes, the ide driver is loading before the ata_piix driver.
2. Wifi is horrible. Using the latest ipw3945 drivers, the laptop wants to be within 5 feet or so of the access points to work semi-reliably. But even then, it doesn't always work right. If I am more than 5 feet away, it's very random as to whether it will even see the access points (usually not) and connecting almost never works. I have also tried ndiswrapper, but that only succeeds in hanging the computer, requiring a hard reboot. BTW, everything is sweet as candy in XP so I'm assuming this is an OS/driver/config issue.
3. Touchpad can't be configured. This wouldn't be such an issue if I could just make that infernal tapping "feature" go away. Has anyone found a driver that works with this thing? It is not a synaptics-compatible device. It is made by ElanTech, and I haven't been able to find even a hint of linux support for it.
Other than those 3 headaches, I LOVE this computer. If I can't get these things working right, I'm going to have to return this magnificent beast, and that royally sucks.
I originally posted this over in the Sager area, but bigtrouble77 recommended I plop it over here as well.
Anyone have any help they can offer? Thanks in advance!
