[Discussion] TP60 (was eCS password

[Carl Gehr]

The jury is still out...  [See inserts below.]

On Sat, 08 Sep 2007 21:36:49 -0400, Julian Thomas wrote:

>In <auto-000001363695 at 2rosenthals.com>, on 09/08/07 
>   at 08:49 PM, "Carl Gehr" <Carl.Gehr at MCGCG.Com> typed:
>
>>And, depending on the hardware, TPads [and other systems sometimes] have
>>Power-On-Password security that you can set up.  My TPad [T60] also has
>>the ability to scan a fingerprint before allowing access to the system. 
>>YMMV...
>
>Right.  There are a lot of BIOS implementations that provide for a
>password that must be entered before boot will proceed.
>
>I also have a T60, with the fingerprint reader, which is really neat.  So
>far, I've not done much with it beyond my standard stuff to make a Win
>boot more palatable [like Open Office, OD, Firefox, etc.]. Have you had
>any luck with:

I've not tried the fingerprint reader at all.  I've not booted to
Windoze more than a couple of times in 'emergency' situations during my
attempts to get the WiFi, et al, working.  As I understand it, the FP
reader looks like some sort of USB device, but I don't know more than
that.

>
>a. Native install of an eCS boot partition (most every report I've read
>says that sound doesn't work, and I can live with that)

True.  No sound.  As far as the rest of eCS, the results have been
variable.

1)  I have eCS 1.2R installed on two systems.  One system seems to be
rather stable, but it's not being stressed very much either.  The
second system [the one I use] keeps locking up after I installed the
last and next to last ACPI/APM support.  The short version:  There is
some problem that causes the system to start bogging down and
eventually does not respond at all.  Sometimes the lockout starts
almost immediately after booting the system and starting a task or two
[example only:  SeaMonkey and/or PMMail], but sometimes it locks almost
immediately.  OTOH, sometimes the system has run for a couple of days
without failing.

I like to use the comet cursor; especially now.  The symptom of
impending failure is the colored spots of the comet tail do not
disappear from the screen, but leave a 'worm-trail' of spots on the
screen.  When this happens, I may be able to get the system to shut
down, but mostly C-A-D shows the message that "The system is
rebooting..." but then it is completely hung.  Power off is the only
way to break it loose.  Interestingly, if I act immediately, it rarely
has left the HD/volumes dirty requiring CHKDSKs.

2)  Not being able to tolerate the instability, I am just completing
the install of eCS 2.0 RC2.  So far [about 20 hours or so], it's been
quite stable.  I have accepted the base install of ACPI and APM and
that has not caused any problems.  [I did have some options on 1.2R,
but I was going based on vague instructions, so it is not inconceivable
one could have caused problems.]  The one option that I definitely
intend to use is '/SMP' to get both processors working.  Early on,
before some of the ACPI/APM updates, I had both processors working just
fine.

3)  As mentioned:  No sound.  Also missing is most of the suspend and
other power management that worked like a charm on my A30p with eCS
1.1.  In fact, part of the problems that started with the recent
ACPI/APM updates is that ALL reboots require POWER OFF.  Shutdown, from
eCenter or from the desktop popup menu just do not function.  IF a
shutdown can be started before the symptoms begin, sometimes the
process actually starts. [e.g., confirmation of Cmd window exits, etc.]
 But, it rarely goes as far as clearing the screen of the desktop.

So far, with 2.0 RC2, no lock ups; no problems with shutdown... I
should have a much better understanding of this new install in a couple
of days.  I still have a number of applications, compilers, etc., to
install.  And, as I said, I do intend to activate the second processor.

>
>b. Installing eCS under Mikkisoft VPC?  I've not made much progress with
>that, although there are a few things that make it progress further -

I've not tried any virtual environments yet.  But, if I cannot get a
stable eCS, I'll probably switch to some flavor of Linux with enough
emulation/virtual support to run those components that I absolutely
require for my business operations.  [That's another full topic  by
itself... Ask if you're really interested.]

>  - In BIOS, change SATA to compatibility mode

I had this same problem with eCS 1.2R install.  But, after installing
the latest kernels and the latest Dani drivers I've been able to run
with SATA(AHCI) set.  I'm running Dani... with the same options I
always have.

>  - eCS installer settings: APC (or whatever it is) off; also, change
>DANIS506 to compatibility mode.

As I said, I have both ACPI and APM active.  In fact, these appear to
both be REQUIRED to allow the Intel PRO/1000 wired Ethernet and the
Intel WiFi [8086:4227] to operate.  And, both are operating quite well
at this point.  In fact, I am typing this on eCS 2.0 RC2 with PMMail,
WiFi attached.  SeaMonkey is also active and working just fine.

There's more, but I think you should get the idea at this point... 
More to come as it happens...

>
>    However, it still hangs in the install process.  Haven't had time to
>get back to it since then.

I've installed eCS 2.0 Beta 3 and RC2 [twice] with absolutely no
problems at all.  Using the 'Advanced Install' and, after selecting the
options, I just let it run unattended.  Everything went just fine; auto
reboots and all picked the correct image to reboot even though I have
WinDoze and eCS 1.2 installed with Boot Manager.

So, that's the current state of things...

Carl