ACER 1681 upgrade issue

[Bill Davidsen]

I have an ACER 1681i laptop, with FC4 running nicely. I'd like to 
upgrade, but I want to be sure it will work before reinstalling. Clearly 
I have a backup, so problems can be recovered, but I'd rather not.

When I boot from a Live-CD of FC[678] with GNOME or KDE, the boot 
proceeds until the login prompt appears, then the keys and mouse buttons 
stop working, but the touchpad still moves the mouse. At that point 
there's no easy way to get debug information, and I'd rather try some 
boot parameters first if someone has a thought on what this might be.

I've tried noacpi and noapic, just in case the Pentium-M CPU is 
confusing some issue. I'm going to try "rescue" CDs instead of live CDs, 
but I really want to be sure the hardware will work before I take the 
time to do a proper install.

Suggestions?

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot