Some notes on Fedora Core 1: RedHat 9.0 to Fedora Core 1 update
Update: I found some far better documents on how to install Redhat 7.3, 8.0 and 9 on the XE4500:
Some notes on installing Mandrake 9.1: Mandrake 9.1 on xe4500 external firewire HDD
To give some hints on how to install Redhat Linux 7.3 on a HP Omnibook XE4500. Most of the information here should work on Mandrake 8.2 also since they run a 2.4 kernel too.
My model came with windows XP pre-installed and i chose to install Linux at the end of the disk (without erasing win xp). The default install also features a partition at the beginning of the disk (for utilities and tests).
I shrunk the C: partition to about 10 Gb and created a ext2 parition of 5 Gb and one swap partition (512 Mb).
Partitioning Tool: Partition Magic 7.0 (6.0 doesn't see NTFS partitions as used by winxp).
Note: an option might be the BootIt NG from Terrabyte. (I haven't tried it for partitioning but it did a nice job at rescuing my MBR).
The RedHat installer chokes when fdisk/Disk Druid starts. The reason is the linux kernel can't auto-detect the speed of the IDE bus. So you need to pass parameters to the kernel when starting the install. idebus=66 did the job for me.
Once you start the install with idebus=66 everything should go smooth. If you're installing at the end of the disk use grub. Either grub or lilo, remember to write the idebus=66 line in the configuration so the kernel picks it up at boot time.
The network card will report a lot of errors when in use. (viewable via ifconfig).
Solution: recompile kernel. In the config of the kernel, enable workaround for high errors on the Nat Semi driver( Network Device Support -> Ethernet (10 or 100 Mbit) -> National Semiconductor[..] -> NatSemi workaround for high errors). APMD does not work (reports BIOS not found)Pretty annoying considering we are talking about a laptop and unfortunatelly i don't have a real solution (yet?).
Partial Solution: try ACPI.
Get the latest ACPI patch for the 2.4.18 kernel, apply over redhat's kernel, tweak as neccessary (1 undefined variable in apic.c i think) and recompile the kernel. Install the acpid package (contains the user-space acpi daemon). Functionality of version 20020726-2.4.18: the battery and the ac adapter are not detected, everything else works. (thermal, buttons, lid sensor). Pretty useless really.
The Radeon display driver has some problems as X will sometimes start up with a weird display. Switching to the console and back (Ctrl+Alt+F1 followed by Ctrl+Alt+F7) does the job for me.
Enjoy!
Cristian Draghici