I have a Compaq Presario 1827, that came with Win98. I wanted to use Linux on it for school, here is my posting for others who want to use the same laptop.
I Started by removing the existing partitions and starting from scratch. Then installed Red Hat v7.2 using the bootable cd I make from the ISO, which can be downloaded from RedHat.
The video board is an ATI Rage LT Pro, on a the PCI bus. It works with the XFree86, and uses to mach64 driver.
The screen is 1024x768 pixels.
Drivers are available from the GATOS project, but you wont need these unless you want to change your settings for Xv.
The sound card is a "JBL Pro Audio",
It uses the "ESS Solo 1" chipset, It is pretty easy to set up during install. The driver in some Linux kernels is a little buggy. I've noticed clicks and pops when booting up, and some issues with DVD playback.
The NIC works perfectly. From what I can gather it is a Etherexpress Pro 100 .
Based on the Lucent chipset 56k v.90 ( win-modem ). I have not tried to set the drivers for this, I bypassed it by using a Xircom CEM56 PCMCIA card.
I enabled APM support. Suspend and Standby work, Power-down works to.
The Linux Laptop page was very useful. It lists several other similar models, and those pages proved helpful.
I will update this page with some good hdparm settings and other hacks. if you would like my help, I will do what I can do help you get set up, the email link is below.
Posted: 2/21/02
Questions? I might be able to help;
email me.