[ltp] x20 questions

[Charles E. "Rick" Taylor, IV]

On Tue, 2005-07-26 at 19:43 +0200, Rolf Leggewie wrote:

[X20]

> * Can the battery be hot-swapped?

If you mean changed out while on mains, sure.

> * What are good sources for a battery apart from ebay preferrably in
>    Germany but US is OK.

Don't know.  Mine came with a good battery.

> * Anybody ever thought of hacking the ultrabase into an external battery
>    case?  I do not need the ultrabase but I'd like to extend battery time
>    to at least 8 hours if possible.  Does the ultrabase have enough room?

If you mean the thing I've seen called the "media slice", forget it.
Buying one of those external batteries that will power any device is
probably a better option

... and if you get 8 hours of battery on anything you can put INSIDE an
X20, I'd love to hear about it. :)

> * RAM is 320MB max and that is what I intend to put in.  I read on this
>    list that not all 256MB modules are supported.  Any general rules how
>    to discern the supported from the unsupported?

Buy from a vendor that lets you select a laptop model.  I bought mine
from crucial.com, if I recall correctly.  Even if you don't buy from
them, you can generally get their site to tell you what kind of RAM to
buy.

> * Can the X20 be used in dual-head mode under Linux (TFT plus external)?

With current software, you can only use the VGA port and internal
display at the same resolution.  Talk to one of the X guys on the list
for more/better info. :)

You *can* get accelerated 3D on an X20.  Admittedly, it's not FAST by
any stretch of the imagination.  But you can play Tux Racer.

> * Is the mini-pci slot a standard?  Can I just put in anything? 

You can put in other IBM-sanctioned cards.  I switched the 3com
modem/ethernet combo for an intel/lucent one, because the 3com modem has
no Linuc drivers.  I've not tried any *other* cards, though IBM BIOSes
are said to contain a list of officially supported cards and will fail
to boot if you put in an unsupported card.  I'm not sure if the X20 does
this or not, because I replaced my ether/modem combo with another IBM
card.

>  What
>    about WLAN cards?  I guess they would at least lack an antenna, right?

... which would make them not-so-good. :)  (Did any model of the X20
come with wireless?)

My wife uses a Netgear WG511 PCMCIA card with her X20.  No problems,
provided you get one of these cards with a Linux-supported chipset.

The X20 has only one PCMCIA slot, but pretty much everything you'll need
except for wireless is built-in anyway.

My page on Linux and the X20:
http://home.mindspring.com/~charletiv/tpx20.html

My page on the Netgear WG511:
http://home.mindspring.com/~charletiv/wg511.html

-- 
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*  Charles E. "Rick" Taylor, IV <tomalek@mindspring.com>
*  Chemistry instructor / Mad scientist / Linux enthusiast!
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*  Web: http://home.mindspring.com/~charletiv/
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