The blog of Michael Rice

Well I got a Compaq Presario 15.4″ Widescreen Notebook PC (V6120US) CPQ V6120US as my christmas gift this year from my mom, she paid for about 400 of it and I had to cover the cost of the rest (which was close to 600 dollars). I wish I had done more research about linux on this system. I started tonight by install Debian Etch amd64. The install was really quick. In under 30 mins I had a fully installed debian system. The problem was that it would lock up if the system beep was triggered, or if I tried to start X as a user instead of as root, or if I tried to boot the box in any other run level than single user mode. Next I gave Ubuntu 6.10 a shot both the i386 and the amd64. Both system had the same problem, just randomly locking up for no good reason. Next on to Fedora Core 6 both i386 and x86_64. The i386 was a huge waste of ime, it was constantly locking up, it was lucky to even boot. The x86_64 was just as bad, I managed to get it to boot every time into single user mode but when trying to boot to init 3 with gdm turned off it will lock in a diff spot every time. I went in to init 1 and turned off every service I could think of but it still locked in a diff spot every time.

My advise is this: If you plan to use linux on this system, please dont waste your money

Over this weekend I will be trying to find some Open Source OS that will run, but Im not keeping my hopes up. I refuse to use windows on this box so if I dont have any luck getting linux working Im gonna try to sell this thing and get a 32 bit system. As of right now I feel like I took about 1000 bucks and flushed it down the crapper. Had I gone with a 32 bit system I would have been able to score one hell of a system I think… If you have any hints on what can be done to get this system working please feel free to comment and let me know. Thanks.

Its sure nice to be on spring break this week. I have needed the break from school. You might have noticed the site being down for a week or more and wondered why. Well I have been busy setting up a FreeBSD 5.3 web server and I will start setting up the email service on it soon using QMail Rocks.

We have been busy trying to clean up our shop in the back yard. We have a 20×40 shop out back that makes a great workshop but we started filling it with stuff that we wanted to sell in a yard sale almost 5 years ago and have never had the sale. It sat out there so long it got ruined and so we have been cleaning it out. I get to haul off a trailer load of broken recliners and other trash off to the dump in the morning, it should be loads of fun; we just have to get out there before it heats up….if you know what I mean.