DSL on Thinkpad T43p

Working on getting some semblance of DSL running on my new IBM/Lenovo T43p Thinkpad. Goal is to have a Linux partition where /home and /opt are housed, but with DSL running in toram mode off of a Live CD. The challenge right now is to resize the existing NTFS partition and create a new one that is EXTFS2 formatted. It appears the tool to use for this is QTParted, for which there conveniently happens to be a MyDSL extension.

I'm seeing a great deal of inconsistency between how DSL 2.0, DSL 2.3 and Knoppix 3.9 recognize this machine. At the moment, my chief stumbling block appears to be that QTParted in DSL 2.3 doesn't appear to support the "resize" operation in NTFS. One has to wonder just how useful this utility is without that functionality. Back to the drawing board, and the DSL forum to see if there are clues there. May have to do this in Knoppix, but that has its own problems, as it does not recognize the drive as "hda1", but rather as "sda1".
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A few additional inconsistencies I've noted:
NIC
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Docking station nic: detected by DSL 2.0, but not detected by DSL 2.3.
Onboard Ethernet: undetected by both DSL variants, detected by Knoppix
Onboard Wireless: undetected in both DSL variants, detected in Knoppix
USB pendrive: not detected in DSL 2.0, detected in DSL 2.3