Pentium II 266
128 MB Ram
3.8 GM IBM-DTCA-24090 Hard Drive
ESS 1879 Audio
S3 Virge/MX Video Card with 4MB ram
No CD except for an external Buslink CD/RW (non-bootable)
Belkin F5D5020 10/100 PCMCIA Network Card (for FTP install)
DWL-122 802.11b USB Network Card (after install)
The challenge with this little laptop was to find a reasonably up-to-date Linux or BSD distribution that still supported a network install, or that supported an external, non-bootable USB CD-RW drive. I run Mandrake 10.1 on my Compaq Presario 730US laptop, so I started there. No good. For some reason, both Mandrake 10.1 and 10.0 could not detect any IDE devices on this laptop, thus no hard drive. I was successful installing Mandrake 9.2, but I did not want to run an “end-of-life” product. I had the same problem with FreeBSD 5.3. It could recognize the hard drive, but it was unable to partition it (it complained of some DMA error). NetBSD installed fine, but I felt lost trying to get anywhere! Libranet installed fine (libranet has a usb-capable boot floppy, so I installed from the external CD-RW), but the package system kept getting messed up, so I decided to go with Debian. The network install was very simple – the network card was recognized, I partitioned the drive, and selected a mirror. Boom! Everything went fine in the base install. After rebooting, the setup resumed and I selected packages – again no problem. Only a couple problems came up. X-windows would only run at 800x600 or 640x480. All I did was edit the Xfree86Config-4 file and add the mode. Also, the sound card was not detected. I went over to 4Front-tech and downloaded their driver. At first it failed (couldn't compile itself), so I had to install the kernel-headers for my kernel using the remarkably simple Synaptic program. My last goal was to get wireless working. I first tried a Microsoft MN-520 card. It did not even detect it, so I added information about the card in /etc/pcmcia/config, but the card still didn't work with the ornico module. I download and compiled linux-wlan-ng, and the card locked up my computer solid! Next I bought a DWL-122 USB stick for $19.99 at tigerdirect.com. I plugged it in and it instantly worked. The only oddity with this card is it fails at boot-up. I have to wait until the computer boots, and then plug it in. Whatever! The good news is for $99.95 (including shipping) from Ebay, I now have a nice little Gnu/Linux laptop. Woo!!
Tom Dison
fretinator AT smallvue DOT com
Toshiba, Compaq, IBM, and Dell are only a few brand name laptops Bob Johnson's Computer Stuff sells. Also, take a look at Bob's Pentium desktops. Each system comes with a guarantee. Click Here to check out Bob's cheap prices.
Get wholesale prices on Panasonic Toughbook CF-48 Laptops.
This rugged Laptop can withstand some rough treatment. Panasonic Toughbook CF-48 Laptops when you need to be tough.
Only Panasonic can offer rugged laptops for those harsh, dusty, moist work conditions. Power and Toughness only from the Panasonic Toughbook CF-48