silicon pop culture!

Well I’ve been thinking about messing with putting Linux onto my TR3 after college lets out.

I’ve been doing a lot of research but I haven’t been able to find the answer to several questions…

1.  Is there a way to make the side buttons on the monitor work, and if so how?
2.  Is there a way to make the Fn + X keys work, and if so how?
3.  Can you setup it up to tell the sonypi drivers to dim the screen automatically when you unplug the laptop, and if so how?
4.  Is there a GUI front-end for the sonypi drivers (I have no problem with the command line, I’m just curious)?
5.  Is there a way to make the built in wireless work on a wireless network using LEAP authentication (this is probably the most oddball question I have but its what my school uses so its a must), once again and if so how?
6.  Will I be able to use a bluetooth mouse (already have the bluetooth upgrade done)?

Also, if at all possible, I’d rather have distro neutral solutions (I’ll be using Slackware reguardless though), but its not a must (I’m sure I can find a way to make something Red Hat, Gentoo, Mandrake, etc. specific work).  Any help on these questions would be very much apprieciated.

Cool i like your interest in linux. Sorry i don’t have great answers to your questions. Theres others on this forum that do. have no fear im soon to be a expert in these matters. currently im looking into these sort of things. im into Fedora Linux which im into the most , which i have on my desktop.

Why not try http://www.damnsmalllinux.org?

Entire operating system, programs, and other accessories are designed to fit on either a cd or flash thumb drive.  All the fun of linux, none of the committment. 

Toss everything on a 512MB flash thumb drive (1 GB if your program hungry) and then boot off of that.

I haven’t tried it with the TR yet, but that’s my next project….oh, BTW, i doubt that you’d be able to get the right hand buttons to work on any OS unless you’re willing to write your own drivers.

I would try one of those Linux on USB keys but I’ve been a Slackware user for a couple years now and I don’t really have a desire to switch from that.  Anyhow I also need more room then a USB key will offer (and since I will only use NTFS when using Windows XP there is no reliable way for me to actually write items to my harddrive without ditching Windows).

Like I said I was just more or less curious about trying it on my TR.  I’ve had good luck running it a desktop and it would be nice to have a computer to carry with my to college that I didn’t have to worry about security wise.  But thanks for the replys.

Thanks a bunch segfault.