Hi there,I did an install of Debian onto such a machine. Since everything is Cenntrino technology from IBM all hardware works as it should. There is only one exception though: The Ethernet interface is a "Marvel Yukon something" and it does not work at all. Even not with the new replacement driver for the classical "sk98lin".
The trouble is now to install debian withough network. You need either a local mirror (I did it with an external drive) or with the CDs. Since W-Lan does work you can install a basic system with wireless-tools et al and use wlan afterwards to install the rest.
Concerning serial ATA:If you use a CD-Installation you should install it with "kernel 2.4" (the boot option is called "install24"). This is because the 2.6 kernel does recognize the hard disk as SATA and can not use the CDROM. If you use kernel 2.4 for installation it uses PATA for both harddisk and cdrom.
After installation of the base system you can install a 2.6 kernel. to be able to use the CDROM with Serial ATA consult:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problems_with_SATA_and_LinuxI used the trick with getting rid of the IDE drivers and using the Serial ATA drivers for CDROM access. To achieve this, I set the piix (for IDE) and ide-generic modules on the blacklist for initramfs-tools and ahci in the module list. you also need to set the Kernel command line as described in the thinkwiki.
In general: The information provided in the ThinkWiki holds for all centrino notebooks. (the R52 Thinkpads are all Centrino)).
Maybe you could describe your exact problem in more detail if this information does not help.
Have fun with Debian, udo. Miguel Angel Piquer wrote:
Hi boys, someone has installed Debian into a Toshiba with SATA?...i couldn't.