COMPAQ Presario 1200-XL125
Redhat 6.1 Installation
Chuck Hill: chuck@hillsystems.com
Overview

The XL125 is very similar to its predecessor, the 1200-XL110. The XL110 has a very good installation how-to by John Rinehart that made this install very easy. Most of my notes here are a repeat from John's page, with the exception of X configuration (which John was also helpful in getting setup). Another excellent site is Tom Hunt's page on installing Redhat 6.2 on the XL125.

Specifications Installation Overview

The basic install entails the following Repartitioning hard drive

The XL125 comes preconfigured with MS Windows 98. I've decided to go dual boot for the time being, so this meant repartioning the drive. The system comes with two MSDOS partitions, C: (/dev/hda1, containing preinstalled Microsoft and Compaq software) and D: (/dev/hda5, which is a backup for Windows). The C: drive takes up about 4.5 gigs of the disk. I decided to free up 1.5 gigs of that for Linux.

There are a few routes to take to repartioning your MSDOS drives. I chose to use Partition Magic, but one could just as well use FIPS ( Here is a tutorial to FIPS www.kclinux.com/dual/fips.shtml ). Whichever option you choose, it would be wise to backup any personal data, and be sure to read the documentation. Disk repartitioning is a destructive operation and it is best to be cautious at this point.

The freed up 1.5 gigs are plenty of room for a 64Mbyte swap partition and the remainder for root partition and any other partitions you might want. My install of Redhat used up about 500 Mbyte.

Installing Redhat 6.1

Installing Redhat is pretty much a snap. If you haven't installed Linux before, I would highly recommend you read the installation guide first. The Compaq's BIOS has the CDROM set as a bootable device, so inserting the Redhad CD into the drive and rebooting should boot up the installation program. If not, you can use the Redhat installation floppy instead.

The X interface will not work with the install, so you will need to select 'expert text' mode. Skip the step asking to insert a driver disk. Select a custom class install. Use Disk Druid to partition the hard drive. Select 64megs for a swap partion, allocate the rest to a root (/) partition.

The X setup did not work. This was the trickiest part of the whole process, requiring a few hours of trial and error, and a few emails with John Rinehart.

Configuring X Windows

Getting X setup took a little fiddling with Xconfigurator, trying different combinations until I found one that worked. The magic incantation turned out to be Let Xconfigurator probe your card. It should come back with 1024X728, 32bpp.

Here is a copy of my XF86Config.

Configuring the Lucent modem

The XL series has a rarity in the Linux world -- a usable Winmodem. Lucent has made a binary module available for Linux. The module is downloadable from www.linmodems.org/linux568.zip. Unzip the file and run the 'ltinst' install program as root. This will set up the module to be loaded when you boot up.

The Synaptics touchpad

There is a configuration utility, tpconfig, for the Synaptics touchpad, downloadable from compass.com/synaptics/. This utility will allow you, amongst other things, to set the sensitivity threshold of tap mode (or turn off tap mode completely). I find the default tap sensitivity to be inconvenient, especially when I'm typing, where the slightest touch from my palm will activate a button click. You can change this setting with the '--zthreshold=[0-7]' switch. tpconfig params cannot be changed when X is running, so this needs to be run at startup if you want to change any settings. There is a sample script you can copy and hack, and put under /etc/rc.d/init.d for system startup.

Other Install issues