Installation
I used an AMD64 netinst CDROM from http://amd64.debian.net/debian-installer/ to install 64-bit Debian on the laptop.
You will probably need an USB storage device or some (re)writable CDs to get network drivers on the laptop (see below).
Things that work
Keyboard
Works out of the box.
Touchpad
Works out of the box (including the scroll region).
NEC DVD±RW writer
Works out of the box.
Use dvd+rw-tools to burn DVDs.
USB 2.0
Works out of the box.
Firewire
Works out of the box.
Bluetooth
Works out of the box.
This is a built-in USB device that is (de)activated by pressing the first hotkey right of the power button.
When the wireless status LED is blue or cyan, it is activated.
Remote control
This works out of the box as an event device of the input system.
Some keys can be captured and used by X programs, but to get the most out of it,
install inputlirc.
Realtek ALC882 HDA soundcard
This works out of the box, but there are a few issues.
Add the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/options:
options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1
Without this option, ticks can be heard during playback.
There is something strange with the mixer settings.
With ALSA, you can change the "PCM" volume, but with OSS, this mixer setting does not exist.
Instead, with OSS the "Vol" setting is equal to ALSA's "Front" setting.
Programs that play sound via OSS play as if ALSA's "PCM" mixer is set to 100%.
Furthermore, the laptop has 5 speakers, 2 front, 2 rear and one subwoofer located underneath.
The driver supports 4.1 playback, but unfortunately the output meant for the rear speakers goes to the headphone jack instead.
Hopefully this will be fixed in future versions.
AMD Turion processor
Works out of the box.
To prevent the CPU from getting too hot,
modprobe powernow-k8 and modprobe cpufreq_ondemand,
and install cpufrequtils and cpufreqd.
ACPI
ACPI seems to work fine for normal use.
There seems to be no ACPI support for the fan and the backlight though.
The backlight only turns off if you close the lid, and the fan speeds up and down automatically.
Suspending the laptop with ACPI is a bad idea, but that is because this functionality is not supported very well by Linux at the moment.
PCMCIA TV card
Works almost out of the box,
you need to add the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/options:
install saa7134 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install saa7134 card=55 alsa=1; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install saa7134-alsa
You will need a program like tvtime to watch TV.
You will also need an extra program like sox to record audio from the TV card's ALSA device to the soundcard's ALSA device, because tvtime doesn't do this for you (it assumes audio output is already wired to the soundcard).
Maybe other TV viewing programs do support this kind of audio setup automatically.
RaLink RT2500 802.11g 54 Mb/s wireless Ethernet
This chip is supported, but the driver is not (yet) part of the official Linux kernel.
To compile the driver for it, install module-assistant.
Run module-assistant and select and build the rt2500 driver.
Alternatively, try one of the newer drivers from http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/.
Also install wireless-tools.
The chip apparently remembers the last ESSID and/or access point it was associated with,
even if you power down your laptop.
To make sure it associates with another network, run iwconfig eth0 essid any.
You can also put the option wireless-essid any in /etc/network/interfaces.
The laptop has a button to switch the wireless devices on and off.
Under Linux, the wireless network card always works, regardless of the state of the wireless status LED.
ATI Radeon Xpress 200
Works, but you will need to compile ATI's binary-only driver of course.
Download the latest installer from http://www.ati.com/,
and make it create Debian packages for you with sh ati-driver-installer-8.22.5-x86_64.run --buildpkg Debian/unstable.
Install the packages fglrx-driver and fglrx-kernel-src which the installer created.
Now run module-assistant and let it build and install the fglrx module for you.
Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and make sure Section "Device" contains Driver "fglrx".
Restart X.
You should be able to play most 3D games and applications without problems.
Agere ET1310 Gigabit Ethernet
This is a very new chip, and you have to search hard to find anything about it.
There is however a driver that works under both 32 bit and 64 bit installations now.
You can find the details at http://dadams1969.googlepages.com/et131xkernelmodule.
Make sure you have the new source, apply the new patch, and fix any compiler errors that are left (for me, this was to add PUINT16 in front of line 1476 of ET1310_rx.c).
I'm keeping some driver code in my Subversion repository, see http://svn.sliepen.eu.org/et131x/, including the start of a cleaned up reimplementation (in branches/redone/) that might serve as the starting point of a driver that can be included in the mainstream kernel.
Things that do not work
BisonCam "1.3 megapixel" built-in USB webcam
No driver exists yet, although it seems that people are working on it.
It is not 1.3 megapixel though, probably more like 384x288 or 640x480 pixels.
O2 Micro MultiMediaCard reader
No driver exists yet.
PCMCIA Smartcard interface
The laptop comes with a bracket that can hold a smartcard and which goes into the PCMCIA slot.
Linux sees it as a storage device, but trying to access it only gives I/O errors.
I don't know if this is a hardware or a software problem.
This report is listed at TuxMobil - Linux on laptops, notebooks, PDAs, mobile phones.
This report is listed at Linux on Laptops.