I decided to scrap an install of SUSE Linux 9.1 that had been running on my HP ze5375us laptop. It’s not that SUSE didn’t install correctly; in fact it did, and quite smoothly compared to my initial disastrous attempt at getting RedHat 9 installed. Basically, there are some well-documented problems with Firewire and PCMCIA issues for HP laptops installing Linux. The nofirewire type install options needed to be given in order for the boot loader not to freeze the computer looking for some devices (you’d see some ohci-something error and voila, screen frozen, try a reboot with the image and catch it before booting…