Installing Fedora Core 2 on a Toshiba M35-S320

Updated: 1/21/05

[Documentation for upgrading FC2 to Fedora Core 3 is here. Documentation for doing a fresh reinstall of FC3 is here.]

After the DVD drive on my old laptop died (probably after being squished in a subway door), I went out and bought a new Toshiba Satellite M35-S320. I wanted to keep Windows for sentimental reasons, but most of the time I work in linux, so this is the story of how I built a dual-boot machine with Windows XP and Fedora Core 2.

First, I needed to resize the NTFS partition. In the past, I've used Partition Magic, but this time I went the non-commercial route and used ntfsresize. I downloaded the latest SystemRescueCD and followed these instructions. This just worked. I gave NTFS about 15GB; the rest I used for FC2.

Tip: Booting from CD on the Toshiba isn't completely intuitive since the machine races past the screen where you are given that option. At startup, just keep hitting F12, and a popup menu will appear with your boot drive options.

Next, I installed FC2 from CDs. Because I'm lazy, I did an "everything" install. I experienced no problems, and didn't have to pass any special parameters to the installer's kernal. After install, I was able to boot up into the GUI (init level 5), log in, and work at an 800x600 resolution. Getting X Window set up properly to support the right resolution (1280x800) and the Synaptics trackpad is the next step.

Tip: I don't like to boot into a GUI in case X starts acting up. To boot into a text terminal window (init level 3), modify /etc/inittab and edit the appropriate line to read:

id:3:initdefault:.

Next, download and install the nVidia driver and edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf according to the instructions in the README file.

You also need to edit xorg.conf to get the trackpad working. First, download the Synaptics driver and install it. Then edit your xorg.conf file to support the device. For convenience, and to save me a lot of typing, you can view my config file here for details on setting up the nVidia driver and the trackpad. Start up X, and you should have a nice, shiney new desktop.

Tip: Some people have reported problems booting into Windows after installing FC2. This didn't happen to me, but if it happens to you, a fix is available here.

To get the builtin wireless working, download and install the ipw2200 drivers. Version .4 was the first i tried, and it didn't work for me; version .5 did. After installing the drivers, reboot and kudzu should pick up your "new hardware".

I don't seem to be able to associate with access points that don't broadcast their essid, but passing the mac address instead to iwconfig does the trick:

iwconfig eth1 ap xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Tip: Save your self a headache or two, and make sure that you've flipped the wireless switch on the front of the laptop to "on".

Besides the basics above, here's what I know works:

  • Wired networking
  • Wireless networking with a PCMCIA card (D-Link DWL-650)
  • Sound
  • USB mouse
  • Burning CD-ROMs

I haven't had the chance to test that everything on the laptop is working as it should, however. Here's what I don't know about:

  • Firewire
  • Playing DVDs
  • Infra-red networking

A few miscellaneous notes:

  • I've found that booting with a USB mouse plugged in disabled the Synaptics touchpad. Plugging the mouse in later lets both work together fine.
  • To listen to audio CDs in KsCD, go into the configuration dialog, and check "Use direct digital playback. Set the audio backend to "arts". (I discovered this with FC3, but it should work in FC2 as well).

That's it for now. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.