using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[brent harding]

I was having problems with it in windows no matter what I do, I'm thinking
about putting it on my laptop, but am unsure of what to do in fipps to
split my partition so I have space for it. Is there a text based program
that will configure the kernel for use with what my laptop needs to have
when I get far enough to compile it? When I downloaded drivers.tgz,
root.bin, rescuedtlk.bin, and base_22.tgz for installing debian, and using
loadlin and install.bat, I got a lot of unresolved module symbols when I
ran the system, after having to mount rescue.bin as a loopback file system
and move the linux file to /target/vmlinuz, the place that the installation
system mounts the root partition, and when I booted I got the messages. I
now run kernel 2.2.15, but I had someone compile it over telnet, so I'd get
the right config settings, but I was lucky to get things up to the point of
using telnet. Now that my laptop will need different stuff, and it may not
boot without it, like pcmcia devices, the swappable flopp y and cd drive,
and the modem, can I just copy .config from my current machine to the
laptop, edit the file so where it mentions pcmcia=n put a y in it's place,
and have things going? Is there a way to autodetect what hardware I have,
as windows device manager says dell this, dell that, which doesn't give
much info, as dell wasn't anywhere to be found in a kernel config file to
enable dell laptop support, or something. I'm not real sure if the hard
drive although internal is also pcmcia or what, it probably is as far as I
know, I can't take it out easily, but what else really is in laptops.