Suse 9.2 on an Averatec C3500.
Updated 12-25-04 with more detailed instructions on ndiswrapper
The Laptop. Averatec C3500 Convertible tablet/laptop

This is a small lightweight budget laptop/tablet convertible.

The laptop came with WinXP Pro installed already, I decided to do a dual boot system. The 60 gig hard drive was all allocated to windows. I used partition magic 8.0 to shrink the windows partition to about 38gigs, leaving about 17gigs for linux.

For the linux side I chose SuSE 9.2. To get SuSE to install you have to choose "installation" and supply 1 kernel argument "nomce" also you must choose text mode install by hitting F2 and choosing text mode. Once into the installation choose your software and etc. Before continuing make sure that you choose 3 as the default runlevel, the display will freak out if you run X with out updating the driver.

Post Installation Setup, Grub is the default bootloader for SuSE, it handled booting to windows just fine. Yast2 launches and detects and then asks you to configure your hardware. See the table below for what worked, what didn't, and what I eventually did get working.

Yast2 asked to configure my network devices, it detected my wired ethernet perfectly. The modem is detected but I haven't tried it out yet.

The video is pretty straight forward. Winischofer.at is the definitive source for SiS video drivers for linux. Suse 9.2 uses x.org 6.8.1 so here are the instructions.

  1. cd /tmp
  2. wget http://www.winischhofer.net/sis/sis_drv.o_xorg_6.8.1_gcc3_151204-1.tar.gz
  3. tar -xzvf sis_drv.o_xorg_6.8.1_gcc3_151204-1.tar.gz
  4. cp sis_drv.o /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/
Now you can start your X server

The wireless is quite a mess to get working.

Helpful Links:
RaLink Forums on NDISWrapper
NDISWrapper Site
RT2500 Manufacturer Site RALink
LinuxQuestions.org Forum with good stuff for SuSE and NDIS Wrapper

  1. SuSE includes a broken NDISWrapper you must delete it prior to compiling NDISWrapper rm /lib/modules/2.6.8-24.5-default/extra/ndiswrapper.ko
  2. download latest ndiswrapper
  3. tar -xzvf ndiswrapper*
  4. cd ndiswrapper*
  5. make install
  6. Download the windows driver and unzip it.
  7. insmod ndiswrapper
  8. Launch yast2 goto network devices --> network card then select other (not detected) and click on configure. change device type from Ethernet to Wireless !very important! Under module put ndiswrapper and then click next. The rest of the defaults should be fine.

    9. At this point I couldn't do anything outside my subnet. I wrote a little script to setup a few things.

    #wifisetup - set gateway set essid set mode
    iwconfig wlan0 essid ALNET
    iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
    route add default gw 192.168.1.1
    Change ALNET to your essid and 192.168.1.1 to your gateway.
    Also you have to add ndiswrapper to the list of modules to load at boot time. yast2 -> /etc/sysconfig editor -> search modules -> goto modules to load at boot time -> add ndiswrapper -> apply
    At this time you should be able to ping your router at least or surf the web.

    I'm still working on the usb, I will post more if get anywhere with it.

    I'm having a small issue with the touchpad driver also. I can't tap to click on the touchpad. I have to physically use the mouse button. I have the following info in dmesg.

    alps.c: E6 report: 00 00 64
    alps.c: E7 report: 73 02 14
    alps.c: E6 report: 00 00 64
    alps.c: E7 report: 73 02 14
    alps.c: Status: 15 01 0a
    ALPS Touchpad (Glidepoint) detected
    Disabling hardware tapping

    From what i have read this is aknown issue but I have yet to come across a fix.

    Hardware Worked Worked with some tinkering Not Working Not tested
    Wireless Network   X    
    Wired Network X      
    Video   X    
    Sound X      
    Touchpad X      
    USB     X  
    DVDROM X      
    CD Burner X      
    Modem       X
    Laptop Specific Stuff Battery Meter etc. X      
    Touch Screen     X  
    Any Comments Suggestions or Problems? Email Rob
    More Information about linux on laptops at tuxmobil.org and linux-laptop.net
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