Installing on a DELL Inspiron 8000 Notebook

Support knowledgebase (findeisen_pcmcia_dell-inspirion-8000)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: Versions 7.0 to 7.1
This article refers to an older version of SuSE Linux. Therefore some of the informations given in this article may be outdated or the article may contain stale links.

PCMCIA

Symptom:

During the installation the notebook hangs during hardware probing after having booted from CD1. When booting from CD2, you get the message 'Found pcmcia chipset i82365...insert modules disk'. After loading the modules disk the system hangs also.

Cause:

During the hardware probing the PCMCIA subsystem is started and this blocks the system.

Solution:

You can avoid starting the PCMCIA subsystem by booting from SuSE CD1/CD2 or floppy disk and entering 'manual' at the boot prompt:
boot: manual
Then install with YaST1 as described in the SuSE Manual, chapter 2.2 ( don't load the modules for PCMCIA in the 'linuxrc'!).

Note: Owners of the personal edition will find the SuSE manual as text and PDF file on the first CD in the directory docu, Reading the SuSE Linux manual with the personal edition.

On the first reboot after installation suppress the start of PCMCIA by entering the following at the Lilo boot prompt:

boot: linux NOPCMCIA=yes

After having booted edit the file /etc/rc.config with a suitable editor (joe, vi, the editor built into mc etc.); search for the entry:

PCMCIA_CORE_OPTS=""
and change this to
PCMCIA_CORE_OPTS="probe_io=0"
after having saved the file, restart PCMCIA by executing 'rcpcmcia start'.

SuSE Linux 7.0

The cardbus controller 'Texas Instruments PCI4451 PC' is only supported by version 3.1.22 and up of the PCMCIA package. Please download the following packages from the SuSE FTP server or one of its mirrors:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/zoz/pcmcia-3.1.22-21-7.0-i386.rpm
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/zoz/pcmcia-modules-3.1.22-21-7.0-i386.rpm

and install these packages by executing:

rpm -Uhv pcmcia-3.1.22-21-7.0-i386.rpm
rpm -Uhv --force pcmcia-modules-3.1.22-21-7.0-i386.rpm
in /etc/rc.config also set PCMCIA_CORE_OPTS="probe_io=0".
See also:
o PCMCIA: The Boot Process Hangs
o Reading the SuSE Linux manual with the personal edition

Keywords: PCMCIA, NOTEBOOK, DELL, INSPIRON, 8000, PCI4451

Categories: Hardware

SDB-findeisen_pcmcia_dell-inspirion-8000, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 13. Mär 2001
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 28. Mär 2001 by pthomas (sdb_gen 1.40.0)