Linux and the CTX EZ772 laptop

Please note that the CTX computer that I installed Linux on was merely a loaner machine. I no longer have access to this machine.

The install went perfectly because I had a 20x instead of a 24x CDROM. If you have a 24x CDROM drive, I can not help you install Linux on your CTX machine. Email asking me about installing Linux on a CTX system with a 24x CDROM drive will be unanswered, since I can provide no more help than the help I offer on this web page.

Many moons ago, I was given a CTX EZ772 MT-MK laptop at work to install Linux on. Since this particular CTX has a 20x CDROM instead of the broken 24x CDROM (Again, email asking me about 24x CDROM problems will be unanswered) the install was nearly seamless, with only some minor obstacles:

The touchpad is a standard PS/2 (/dev/psaux) mouse.
The CD-ROM is a standard IDE CD-ROM. Important: My make and model uses a 20x CD-ROM drive. I have multiple reports from the internet that RedHat Linux will not install from a 24X CD-ROM drive.
I have one report that changing the file ide.c in the kernel source to ignore a status of 0x50 allows Linux to use the 24x CD-ROM normally. Another report say that the code in question is:
```
...return 0;

#ifdef CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDECD
        if (drive->media == ide_cdrom)
          return 0;
        else
          ide_error(drive, "status error", stat);
        return 1;
```
at the end of function ide_wait_stat().
Note: This is a kernel change that can only be done after you have sucessfully installed Linux using a hard disk or network install.
If RedHat 6.0 works (or doesn't work) with a CTX with a 24x CDROM, please let me know.
If you have a CTX system with a kernel image that works with a 24x CDROM, please email me the kernel image in question. This way, I will be able to give non-C-programmers a working kernel, allowing them to use the 24x CDROM in their CTX.
The video chipset is a NeoMagic chipset. This is not a problem, thanks to RedHat making available drivers at:

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/XFCom/

Note: This FTP server is very busy, and it may take multiple tries to get these files
The PCMCIA slots are not visible to older versions of the PCMCIA software suite. This is only a problem with people installing older versions of Linux, and can easily be fixed by downloading and installing packages from here:

ftp://hyper.stanford.edu/pub/pcmcia/
Suspend functions do not work--they do nothing. Then again, I have not compiled a kernel with APM support on this laptop yet.

I have a report from the 'net that the CTX EZ774MTFK (20X CDROM) installs without any problems.