introduction
SuSE 10.1 and shrinking the NTFS partition
First a word of warning. Part of the SuSE 10.1 installation offers to shrink your NTFS partition to allow space to install Linux. I took this option and it hosed the NTFS partition and windows was no longer able to boot. Luckily I hadn't done anything in windows (except for defragging the c: drive) so nothing was lost.
Averatec AV4155-GH1
The laptop is a small, lightweight, AMD Turion 64bit machine. 80GB harddrive and 512MB memory.
installation
Initial set-up
I bought this laptop as an ex-display model, so the first thing I did was to test the rescue cds restore of the system. This worked without problem, the documentation said 4 cds, but only 3 were in the package - it only needed 3. The only shame is that it does not allow you to restore the windows OS to a smaller partition size.
Next I tried to use qtparted version 0.43? from a 64bit AMD Knoppix 4.3 cd. Using the suggested resize c: to 14639 MB this failed with the message that NTFS wasn't supported.
The same Knoppix cd included the program ntfsresize.
# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1866 14988613+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Erm, ... this disk looks to have been resized by qtparted, even though it gave an error message.
# ntfsresize
ntfsresize v200309071734captive1
Usage: ntfsresize [options] device
Resize an NTFS volume non-destructively.
-i --info Calculate the smallest shrunken size supported
-s num --size num Resize volume to num[k|M|G] bytes
-n --no-action Do not write to disk
-f --force Force to progress (DANGEROUS)
-V --version Display version information
-h --help Display this help
The options -i and -s are mutually exclusive. If both options are
omitted then the NTFS volume will be enlarged to the device size.
Please report bugs to linux-ntfs-dev@lists.sourceforge.net
Linux NTFS homepage: http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net
# ntfsresize -if
ntfsresize v200309071734captive1
NTFS volume version: 3.1
Cluster size : 4096 bytes
Current volume size: 15345901568 bytes (15346 MB)
Current device size: 15348340224 bytes (15349 MB)
Checking filesystem consistency ...
Accounting clusters ...
Space in use : 3668 MB (23.9%)
Calculating smallest shrunken size supported ...
You could resize at 14638854144 bytes or 14639 MB (freeing 707 MB).
OK, so even though qtparted gave an error message saying that it didn't work, it did actually work!
chkdsk ran upon windows reboot - then rebooted windows - which then came up ok. and my /dev/hda1 is really 14.2 GB in size.
Because of the shitty way that the system rescue works it is important now to make a backup on the windows partition. I updated windows - 54 update packages as of 2006/08/30. Then I rebooted from the Knoppix cd with a USB disk drive plugged in.
# dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/mnt/dd_hda1_20060830 bs=40960
I then put in the SuSE 10.1 DVD and rebooted, selected installation. I accepted the default suggestion for disk partitioning. I changed some things in the suggested installation options - I have a german keyboard and wanted german as a secondary language. I also installed extra software packages - kernel development and c, c++ development. The install ran for about 2 hours, detected and set-up the ethernet adapter. After install I changed the display size to 1440x900 (WXGA). I now have a working laptop with SuSE 10.1 Linux.
lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 760/M760 Host (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SG86C202
00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS964 [MuTIOL Media IO] (rev 36)
00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev 01)
00:02.6 Modem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Modem Controller (rev a0)
00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Sound Controller (rev a0)
00:03.0 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.1 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller
00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 91)
00:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB22/A IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
00:09.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ601/6912/711E0 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller
00:0b.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI (rev 01)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760/761 PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter
lsmod
Module Size Used by
xt_pkttype 2304 3
ipt_LOG 6656 8
xt_limit 2944 8
af_packet 22028 2
cpufreq_ondemand 6956 1
cpufreq_userspace 4500 0
cpufreq_powersave 2176 0
powernow_k8 10512 0
freq_table 5128 1 powernow_k8
snd_pcm_oss 49024 0
snd_mixer_oss 18304 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq 55712 0
snd_seq_device 9360 1 snd_seq
edd 10504 0
button 7968 0
battery 11016 0
ac 5896 0
ip6t_REJECT 6016 3
xt_tcpudp 3712 3
ipt_REJECT 6016 3
xt_state 2560 12
iptable_mangle 3328 0
iptable_nat 8964 0
ip_nat 18860 1 iptable_nat
iptable_filter 3456 1
ip6table_mangle 2816 0
ip_conntrack 57228 3 xt_state,iptable_nat,ip_nat
nfnetlink 7240 2 ip_nat,ip_conntrack
ip_tables 12368 3 iptable_mangle,iptable_nat,iptable_filter
ip6table_filter 3328 1
ip6_tables 13904 2 ip6table_mangle,ip6table_filter
x_tables 14216 10 xt_pkttype,ipt_LOG,xt_limit,ip6t_REJECT,xt_tcpudp,ipt_REJECT,xt_state,iptable_nat,ip_tables,ip6_tables
ipv6 252000 13 ip6t_REJECT
apparmor 53540 0
aamatch_pcre 14464 1 apparmor
nls_utf8 2432 1
ntfs 185320 1
loop 16016 0
dm_mod 59976 0
pcmcia 39704 0
firmware_class 11648 1 pcmcia
shpchp 45440 0
pci_hotplug 28136 1 shpchp
ohci1394 32584 0
ieee1394 101624 1 ohci1394
sis900 24192 0
mii 6144 1 sis900
ohci_hcd 19460 0
ide_cd 40480 0
cdrom 36008 1 ide_cd
ehci_hcd 30216 0
usbcore 130600 3 ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd
yenta_socket 26892 1
rsrc_nonstatic 12928 1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core 42652 3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
snd_intel8x0 35624 1
snd_ac97_codec 102232 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_bus 2816 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm 97292 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 24968 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 65192 10 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 10656 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 10640 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
reiserfs 222464 2
fan 5640 0
thermal 15888 0
processor 26068 2 powernow_k8,thermal
sis5513 13968 0 [permanent]
ide_disk 16512 5
ide_core 145380 3 ide_cd,sis5513,ide_disk
cpu frequency - power save
# cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 0.4: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004
Report errors and bugs to linux@brodo.de, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
driver: powernow-k8
CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0
hardware limits: 800 MHz - 1.60 GHz
available frequency steps: 1.60 GHz, 800 MHz
available cpufreq governors: ondemand, userspace, powersave, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 800 MHz and 1.60 GHz.
The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 800 MHz (asserted by call to hardware).
I followed the advice on Ian Martin's page for the power save button configuration, this doesn't work yet....