Goin etch

Fuu it took me sometimes to backup my data properly. Now my ubuntu on my lappy is dead! However i resurrect it with the latest debian etch, At first i got stuck for a while non of my old laptop configuration works.!!!! the cpu-freq didn`t work the fn key the touchpad .. and i begin to wonder what went wrong. Since my knowledge on debugging is merely RM1.50 i list out all the packages available and found this cool packages call education-laptop.. I install it and puff it works . Can someoen unshed the mystery for me?