I haven't been locked out of this T41 Debian unstable install yet, and I update it every day or so. So far, so good.

I have some questions though.

1) As discussed previously, USB hardware is broken on this laptop. Is that the reason why my Synaptic touch pad doesn't work fully? For instance, I can't tap on the pad area to click or double-click. I installed (something like) gtouchpad-config-... (which I can't find at the moment), but while it shows some configuration options, it doesn't respond to clicking. I see some notes about clicking being disabled by default with an Xorg touchpad driver in 2008, but can't figure out how to enable it. What's confusing is after one update a week or so ago, touchpad clicking was working but the pointer motion was too sensitive. I adjusted it to make the pointer less sensitive, but then clicking stopped working.

Help?

2) Wireless networking works after rebooting, and for several hours of continuous use, but if I come back the next morning it doesn't work (no flashing of the antenna indicator light). I do not have sleep or hibernation enabled.

Along these lines, there are 3 ways of checking the status of networking on the Gnome bar at the top of the screen: 1) The icon on the right (which for me always shows a red X (No network connection); 2) System -> Preferences -> Network Connections; 3) System -> Administration -> Network. They all show something different, or no information at all.

The most reliable way for me to setup and restart the wireless network connection with the GUI is via #3. But it almost always gives me a error like "Unable to save settings" whenever I change anything or select a previously saved configuration. It defaults to showing "Roaming mode enabled" even when it's not.

Why don't these three widgets show the same thing? Why aren't the settings "sticky" in an error-free way? Why do I lose my connection overnight?

3) Adobe's Flash 10.x on Iceweasel is bonkered. I installed the latest version via the Debian update notifier. When it's enabled it works, but my CPU load goes to 100% and this poor little thing gets really hot. On disabling it, Iceweasle immediately closes and the CPU load returns to normal. Is there a better Flash player for Firefox/Iceweasel?

So far, I'm impressed. But I don't know whether the issues I'm having are due to the USB issues with this laptop (and thus worth trying on a better piece of hardware), or if this is normal teething issues on Sid.

Thanks very much.

Cheers,
Scott.

I'm still feeling my way along in the dark in much of this stuff, unfortunately...

1) No "Touchpad" app is in System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications.

I'd read about gsynaptics-init on doing a Google search earlier. Its sourceforge page - http://gsynaptics.sourceforge.jp/ - says use GPointing-Device-Settings (which is the thing I was trying to think of in the earlier post.

http://live.gnome.or...ingDeviceSettings

I couldn't figure out how to install it from the .tar.gz, so I used apt-get to install it. It shows the config dialog, but doesn't enable clicking or double-clicking on the pad area. Should I try gsynaptics-init instead?

2) Network Manager is installed in S->P->SA. My e/n/interfaces is:

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
# wireless-* options are implemented by the wireless-tools package
wireless-mode managed
wireless-essid myessid
wireless-key1 mykey

The last 4 lines are indented by a tab stop. I've seen this in other text config files too. It's incorrect, isn't it? Could that be causing problems?

Another stupid newbie question:

What do I need to use to be able to edit and overwrite config files that are owned by root? I see a "root terminal" app under the GUI menu, but I'd like to be able to easily do it from a GUI file manager and GUI editor. I understand that I don't have permission to change root files, but I know there are ways to have the system prompt for root passwords - I just can't seem to ever remember the hocus-pocus to make that happen.

The kernel I have been booting is the latest that gets installed (though in one case I had to use the previous from the boot menu):

vmlinuz-2.6.30-1-686 (I can't find the linux-image... filename at the moment.)

3) Video:
VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV250 [Mobility FireGL 9000] (rev 02)

Xorg: There are about 2 dozen drivers listed for various chipsets and VESA, etc. The ATI-specific line is:

ii xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.2-3 X.Org X server -- ATI display driver wrapper

(The Radeon line has the same version number.)

Iceweasel: Debian-3.0.12-1

I can't seem to find flashplugin-nonfree. The Shockwave Flash version is 10.0.r32

Perhaps it's the ATI driver that's causing the Flash/100% CPU problems?

Thanks again.

Cheers,
Scott.