[Gllug] Flash-only laptop

[Rich Walker]

Rev Simon Rumble <simon at rumble.net> writes:

> Prices for flash memory seem to be coming down every week or two.  I 
> notice Scan has a 4 gig CF for 160 quid.  Insane!  So I'm thinking, how 
> long until we see flash-only laptops?  Imagine the battery life!
>
> So then I got thinking, how about retrofitting it into an existing 
> laptop?  How hard could it be?
>
> There are IDE-CF adapters.  Would they fit the laptop conectors?

No; laptops tend to have the wrong IDE connectors. On the other hand,
IBM Thinkpads of a certain vintage (X22 certainly) have a CF port, so
you could pull out the HD and start there.

> What about flash wearing?  Can you use file systems like jffs for the 
> root FS?  And do they have any impact through an IDE-CF interface?

You'd need:
* no swap partition
* /tmp, /var/tmp/ and probably a few others on ramdisks.
* a way to dynamically populate-on-boot some of the other more
  frequently-modified directories

Probably, the DamnSmallLinux guys have already done this: they do a
128MB USB stick version. Have a look.

cheers, Rich.

>
> This is really just a thought experiment, but curious to know if it's 
> possible.

-- 
rich walker         |  Shadow Robot Company | rw at shadow.org.uk
technical director     251 Liverpool Road   |
need a Hand?           London  N1 1LX       | +UK 20 7700 2487
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