kernel panic on ze4101

[Erdem Kurul]

yes, i also have
O2Micro OZ6912 Cardbus conroller. same pcmcia problem.

HP sent a reply to my problem "We dont support LINUX"

I have a week to return my laptop. I am undecided.

By the way, anyone tried Suse 8.1???

Erdem
---

[Antonio Sanchez_3]

I also have the ZE4101 and am considering returning it to HP, if they don't work out their PCMCIA issues.

Am I correct that Red Hat 7.0+ and Mandrake 8.0+ install properly on the "KB" unit?

[Martin Tzanov]

How did you return it? Did you buy it directly from HP or through some retail store? I didn't buy it directly from HP and I'm not sure if I have to go through the retail store.

It's possible that KB version won't have the problem because both chipsets are Ali, while in KA one is Ali and the other one is ATi U1 (this one is very new). Also BIOS might be compatible with KB configuration.

[Ken Giusti]

Hi Jacek - you mentioned:

>>I returned KA with O2Micro to store and ordered KB with TI

How do I tell if my laptop is KA or KB? I've got a ZE4125...

All:
Has anyone had better luck with a KB?

I can return this laptop, but the store will demand a 15% restocking fee because the laptop is "NOT DEFECTIVE."

Yeah, not defective as long as you run windows....

...kinda surprises me. If we have a bad bios, why doesn't this problem occur on WinXP?

thanks for the help -K

[Tim Rupe]

I have a ze4145, and I've had the same problem installing Gentoo Linux after compiling the kernel. I've been able to disable the pcmcia checking, and have gotten as far as setting up Xfree. Right now, I can live without pcmcia, but I can't get my display working. Would anybody be so kind as to e-mail me their /etc/X11/XF86Config file?

For some reason, when I run 'startx', my display just blanks out and the caps lock and scroll lock lights on my keyboard blink.

Thanks,

Tim
junk4magnet@hotmail.com

[Mike Kelland]

Ok - I'm sitting in the warm afterglow of actually getting something working before the realisation that there's so much left to do.

I used a really nifty installation package of my favorite distro (Debian) call knoppix to get Linux onto my ze4115. Knoppix is amazing - it'll run linux (with 3 GB worth of installed packages) off of a CD and I have yet to see it fail to auto detect pretty much everything on pretty much any computer. (www.knopper.net/knoppix).

I used a boot option I found here to get it going: nomce. I also found that it would not boot with PCMCIA enabled (or at least with the card plugged in). So I had to either pop the card out or use the nopcmcia boot option.

Now I have a full featured KDE 3.0 desktop going off CD (with the option to write it to the hard drive) but no forseeable way to get PCMCIA running. If anyone finds out anything about that, I'd love to hear it.

Previous experimentation and knoppix's autodetection have shown me that with this laptop, vesa is the x driver to use. So if you haven't tried that yet, give 'er a go :)

Mike

[Jacek Pliszka]

OK, do we all have O2Micro 6192 ? Or the problem is also for notebooks with TI controller ?

Ken: I am talking about ZE4101
which has two submodels:
KA - with O2Micro and Athlon CPU
and which has problems and
KB - with TI and Intel CPU and
which may work.

Regarding returns - you may
try 'not compatible with your
software'. Ask - maybe this
will help avoiding restocking fee.

Regarding Windows - MS products
are known for a lot of hacks
and fixes in them. Just
look at IE which renders
fine pages which are completly
incomaptible with any standards. And uneducated
people claim it means IE
is better ...

Jacek

[John Kohler]

I had a total failure completing the Red Hat 7.3 installation on my ze4101 until I passed the parameter to the installation kernel:

boot: linux nopcmcia

After installation, when I tried to boot from the laptop hard disk, I got the Kernel Panic as you all have. I found that I can use the LILO loader (I don't understand GRUB), and pass this parameter to the kernel each and every time I boot up now:

boot: linux nomce

I understand that this parameter works because the kernel panic is not a fatal error.

Now, I need to figure out why the DHCP ethernet configuration doesn't work at all and why the static configuration works only half way.

John Kohler

[Jacek Pliszka]

OK. I returned ZE4101 KA and got ZE4100 insread. Cardbus works!!!! Not perfectly as I have to run 'service pcmcia restart' when I enter the card but works!!

Red Hat 7.3 installation hints: 'linux nopcmcia' on the first screen and then VESA generic 1280x1024 resolution (1400x1050 does not work).

So for all you folks with Athlon ZE4101 I suggest replacing it due to 'hardware and software incompatibility' by ZE4100 (and probably ZE4101 KB).

I am done with this discussion.

BR,

Jacek

[Tuomas Wiste]

Hi, I'm here because I'm shopping around for a laptop to run linux on. The ze4101 looked great because it has amd thoroughbred + radeon = most efficient (x86) combo available in terms of heat disipation/battery life (much better than p4 -- dont let the marketing fool you).

Anyway, is it final then that there is a bios bug so forget getting the ze4101? Anyone happen to know if the Compaq Presario 906 (almost identical specs and very cool design) has the same bios?

I haven't seen the ze4101 in person. There seems to be a lot of talk about people trading back in for Intel version. Are the ze4xxx that great, or is getting Intel version only option because of rules or something on return? I'd be pissed and take my business to company that made working laptops and/or didn't say "we don't support LINUX".

However, someone at my school is sell a used ze4101 cheap, so please give final word on whether linux problems fixed or not.