Thinkpad Saga Continues

[Janina Sajka]

Hi, Beth:

Don't hesitate to post your troubles here. Some of us have been there
and we should be able to help. No need to learn everything the hard way!
<grin>

What I didn't know until just this past week is that the DEC Talk
Speakup driver is indeed broken. It may not have been your serial port,
though the serial port being off in bios by default has been the case on
many Thinkpads forever.

Also, as you've discovered, you want to get your Win in place first
before installing Linux. Win doesn't share with the other kids on your
hd very well. Got flagged "needs improvement," but can't seem to pass
out of sand box. May have to be held back a grade or two.

Good luck.

Janina

Beth Hatch writes:
> 
> 
> Hi everyone,  Because so many of you kindly posted on this list and 
> privately to me concerning getting Linux on my Thinkpad, I figured I 
> would update you all on what has happened in case it saves some of you 
> the trouble and annoyance I have been experiencing lately.<smile>  I'm 
> sure those of you more knowledgeable than myself on this may have been 
> able to resolve it better and quicker, but I'm still learning, as you 
> will soon see.<smile>
> 
> 
> 
>     My machine came with a 120 gigabyte hard drive with a 30 gigabyte 
> rescue partition containing the computer's recovery files, the other 
> partition was taken up by Windows XP and various Thinkpad and Windows 
> applications. 
> 
>     First, I tried to hook up the docking station and install Fedora 
> using the docking station's serial port to have Speakup talk for me.  
> Speakup could not be found when I specified my Dectalk express as the 
> synthesizer, whether I specified a tty port by naming it specifically as 
> suggested by Janina or by having Speakup find it without specifying the 
> tty port.  Consequently, in order to do my class assignments, I decided 
> to have my instructor assist me in installing Fedora and together we  
> got Gnome and Orca up and running.
> 
>     When we tried to install Windows XP to set up the dual boot system, 
> my XP disk kept hanging at the hardware inspection portion of the 
> installation.  Believe me, if I didn't need this laptop for school which 
> requires Windows and Linux, I would just keep a Linux system!!<smile>  
> Lenovo tech support said on its web site to turn off the dual core 
> processor support in the bios temporarily to allow Windows XP to install 
> properly.  I had a friend assist me and we turned off the dual core as 
> directed.  We still couldn't install XP, same problem, XP hanging at the 
> hardware inspection process.
> 
>     Just for grins, a fellow geek  friend who agreed to help me disabled 
> just about everything in the bios, just to get XP running, no go with 
> that either, same problem.  She tried a Windows 2000 disk, just to see 
> if she could see my Linux partition, and voila! Windows 2000 at least 
> figured out that Linux lived on my system and found the rescue 
> partition.  She nuked those partitions for me, and we are starting from 
> scratch!!  It seems that Linux and grub will see my Windows partition if 
> I install Windows *before* Windows, but Windows XP gets cranky and won't 
> see my Linux partition if I install Linux first and then try to install 
> Windows afterwards.  I realize that this sounds strange, so let me 
> clarify.  Since there were only two partitions, I had to break the 
> larger one to install Linux and the one for the rescue partition wasn't 
> big enough for Fedora with all of the other applications and data in the 
> rescue partition.  I didn't have access to something like partition 
> magic to rebuild the partitions, so we had to take this crazy route 
> instead.  This appears to be what happens at school with all of the dual 
> boot systems where XP and Fedora 6 are involved, Windows seems to be 
> happy being installed first, then Linux and grub set up the dual boot 
> properly.  XP is now on my machine, and I am going to try again to 
> install Linux.
> 
>     Word to the wise, if you have a Thinkpad, the serial port appears to 
> be disabled by default in the bios.  We turned it on, and now I'm going 
> to try
>  again and see how it goes.  I'll keep you posted, unfortunately this 
> thing isn't over yet.<smile>
> 
> Thanks for listening,
> 
> Beth
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.202.595.7777;	sip:janina at a11y.org
Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC	http://CapitalAccessibility.Com

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Chair, Open Accessibility	janina at a11y.org	
Linux Foundation		http://a11y.org