Install on a thinkpad 560Z

[rlyacht]

I'd like to install gentoo on my IBM thinkpad 560Z laptop. This is a "slim" machine with no internal floppy or CD. The CD connects to a PCMCIA card, and I can't get the machine to boot off it So I figure I'll have to use a boot floppy. I found instructions here but they didn't work for me. Basically what it says is to mount the CD in another linux system (the 560Z is running redhat 7.2 now), copy the kernel and initrd and then set up a grub entry to boot them. When I do this it fails. Specifically, it seems to boot the kernel, then tries to load the initrd. However it ends up doing a redhat startup, getting a lot of errors, and ultimatelyu landing me in the "kudzu" screen, which is redhats hardware detection thing. BTW, I'm booting without the CD hooked up in case that matters.

So my questions are

my reasons for doing this are: 1) should be interesting and fun, 2) liux is slow in this machine and I wonder if a gentoo build will be a lot faster (my question is, does that make sense?)

What should I do different to make it boot up ok

What happens after I boot? I presume I mount the gentoo CD and run something?

I have IDE and SCSI external CD's. Which is gentoo more likely to recognize?

I plan to install hooked up to my linksys switch, but ultimately to use my orinoco wireless PCMCIA card. Is this easily done, i.e. are all the wireless drivers and utilities available as gentoo packages

Any other thinkpad specific weirdness to think about?

Thanks!

[Stalione]

Hi,
I got a thinkpad too..X23 to be exact. I was running Slackware on it initially and I was not happy with the performance either...(i compiled the kernel...still its wasn't good 'nuff). So I installed gentoo (I have a docking station with CDrom and Floppy) and I have noticed an amazing speed enhancement. As a matter of fact, even my win2k install is not as fast as my gentoo install (this is a dual boot machine). So that might answer your first question.

As far as wireless support goes....look at the kenel docs... my cousin installed gentoo on his sony viao with a Cisco wireless card and it went smooth. Good luck!

*Sorry I got no answers for your boot from cd deliema.