linux laptop in 24 hours or bust

Anna bought a laptop today and gave me 24 hours before she goes home to install linux on it and get it all set up. Ho boy.

The install went fairly well except for an annoying kernel oops on a sound driver; but it took less than an hour to get a functional desktop, and I even had her do the half of the install that did not involve working around kernel oopses. Not bad really.

Then we had to rsync everything over from her desktop, install a few laptop bits that d-i missed as well as all the apps she likes, tweak X, install a few peices of priorietary software (including ndiswrapper for wireless, ugh), etc. Finally tonight I set up the network she'll use between the desktop and the laptop, configured her synaptics touchpad better, and got alsa working.

The only thing missing is hibernation (well, and the modem); since software suspend isn't even in the 2.6.8 debian kernel, I didn't bother; and I imagine I may end up spending as much time as I did on the whole rest of the install on getting that working during her next visit.

BTW, my only gnome exposure is when I'm setting it up for various family members, so I am late in noting that gnome 2.8 is rather a nice improvement over the last one, and it's really nice that it got into sarge.