[Gllug] pda/subnotebook recommendations

[gllug at minty.org]

On Sat, Jul 24, 2004 at 12:24:02AM +0100, SteveC wrote:
> 
> toshiba libretto + pcmcia + linux

After asking a similar question about a year ago, I ended up with a tosh libretto.  166Mhz CPU and 64Mb ram.  Bluetooth'd, so can gprs via my mobile and wireless'd via an Orinocco Gold.  I do have to put it to sleep to change the pcmcia cards around however.

I have to say it rocks, and I love the size, and what it can do given it's spec.

Points of note, which are well documented around the web:
- you can't boot of the external cd, even if you have one afaik
- external floppy drive uses proprietry drivers, so it disappears after the first linux boot disk is loaded.  Most distro's require more than 1 boot disk.
- watch out for screens that are knackered.

Recommended methods to get linux on: dual boot with win9X.  With a standard 2Gb disk, can be tricky, but is do-able. Or, pull out the disk, mount it on another host, install it from there.

I chose to be stubborn, and spent three months head scratching and fighting, but eventually got a working debian install by:

- installing open bsd
- using that to download mandrake
- using single mandrake book disk, to install from local disk
- using mandrake to download debian.  Involves formatting disks by hand, downloading packages, and running the dpkg stuff by hand.  Eventually it all worked.

I now have kde, sound, wireless, bluetooth, apache, mysql, the works.  It's not super fast, but mozilla and opera both work.  Opera is faster.  I can run real player and flash movies on it without much issue.

If you go the debian route, stick to woody version of kde.  I could just run full screen video under that, but having upgraded to unstable, there just isn't enough cpu/ram spare to make that work.  

Drop me a line if you need any pointers.


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