Linux on Toshiba Satellite A10-REH

I have looked at the traffic to the site lately, and number of people have stumbled across this page looking for linux-related items that are not covered here. I will be trying, in the next little while, to post links to help these folks out. Some of the common searches are USB devices, cd booting, and kernel compiles.
For kernel compiles, the The Linux Documentation Project is the place to look.

For USB devices, try Linux USB

To boot your toshiba from cd, check your manual, as it will probably change depending on model. For the Satellite A10, press and hold the F12 key until the Toshiba welcome screen disappears. Then use the arrow keys to select a boot device from the graphics.

For the USB Mouse, see below. Make sure you have mousedev and uhci modules loaded!

NB:This page is a chronicle of the steps I went through to get Gentoo Linux installed on my Toshiba laptop. These may not work for everyone, but should for most. As with all things, remember to read the install instructions that come with your Linux distro, or you *will* have problems. NEW LINUX USERS: Slackware (described further below) is probably a better distro to install if you just want to learn Linux.

Having said that, here are the vital stats:

Machine: Toshiba Satellite A10-REH (2003 model)
Processor: Intel Mobile Celeron 2.0 Ghz
RAM: 256mb
Hard Disk: 30gb (dual booted: 24.5GB windows, 5GB linux, 500MB linux swap)
Boot from CD: YES. If you can't boot from a CD, this guide isn't for you.
Linux Distribution: Gentoo Linux

Why Gentoo?

Gentoo Linux is a very mature, stable Linux distro. It comes with a pretty good package management system, and is geared to those who want the most optimized system possible. There are three possible starting points for installing Gentoo, which are called "stages". Each stage represents a different level of optimization. Stage 1 installs start with bootstrapping the entire system, stage 2 installs skip this, and stage 3 installs start with kernel compilation, and have some pretty good optimization settings already set for you.

I won't tell you which stage to use; you can decided that on your own. Know that I did a stage 1 install on my machine. This takes the better part of a day on the toshiba machine that I have. Follow the installation instructions on the Gentoo website (above), and you should be okay.

If you are planning on dual-booting like I have done, be aware of the fact that fdisk does not support resizing partitions. If you want to keep your existing Windows partition, you'll have to use another partition utility (Partition Magic is a good one for this). If you don't have partition magic, you can back up all your data and blow away your windows partition, then create a new one using fdisk. The Toshiba recovery CDs can restore ONLY TO THE FIRST PARTITION ON YOUR DRIVE. That means you should plan on installing linux on the second partition.

If all goes well through the install, you should have a working Linux system on your machine. There are still a number of things you will have to do after the install is finished. If you want a GUI or windowing system, you'll have to install one. Gentoo includes XFree86 for a windowing system, and I recommend using it. Once the windowing system is installed, you'll still have to install a window manager. I personally use Fluxbox, but you can install KDE or GNOME if you want.

Slackware

I have used slackware in the past, and have actually installed it once or twice on the Toshiba machine described above. It is also a pretty good distro. It has most of the same features that Gentoo has, except for the emerge package system. Slack uses a different package manager to install packages.

The good thing about Slack is that it is very easily installed. The only thing you really need to do that is somewhat challenging is partitioning your drive. For the fdsik veteran, this isn't a problem. If you are new to fdisk, I suggest you read the Gentoo install docs on how to use fdisk. They are an excellent source of information for that.

The rest of the Slack install should be a relative breeze. Everything comes precompiled for you, so the install shouldn't take more than a couple of hours (at most). The disadvantage is that you won't have a thoroughly optimized system. If you don't care about this, or are totally new the Linux, this is probably the way to go. If you download the Slackware ISO, you can burn it off onto a CD and boot your machine from it (assuming your machine supports that). Most new machines should support CD-boot, which will make your life real easy.

Configuring X11

The quickest, easiest way to configure X11 is to run XFree86 -configure This will create a basic XF86Config file that you can use to start XWindows. See the man page for more details. You should be able to use your trackpad in XWindows, but it is really slow. (The command "xset" can be used to fix this:

xset m 7 3

See the man page for more details) If you have a USB Mouse, I suggest using it. To add a USB mouse to your system, make sure the USB modules are loaded (they should be; both Slack and Gentoo are pretty good about setting up initial USB support for you), and add these lines to your XF86Config:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier "USBmouse"
	Driver "mouse"
	Option          "Protocol"      "imps/2"
        Option          "ZAxisMapping"  "4 5"
        Option          "Buttons"       "3"
        Option          "Device"        "/dev/input/mice"
EndSection

and then add this line to your ServerLayout section:

InputDevice     "USBmouse" "SendCoreEvents"

You'll want the mousedev and uhci modules, I believe.