[ltp] Re: 560 recommendations? [Actually, a 240 now!]

[Richard Neill]

Charles E. "Rick" Taylor, IV wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-09-02 at 01:13 +0100, Richard Neill wrote:
> 
> 
>>Thanks for your suggestions, everyone. In the end, I bought a 240 for 
>>£80. hopefully, this will work :-).
>>Spec: 10.4" LCD, 6GB, PII,300, 192MB RAM, 1.5kg
> 
> 
> I think that's probably a Celeron at 300 MHz.  If it is, you can upgrade
> the RAM to 320M - highly recommended.  192MB is *tolerable*, but 320MB
> will make that 240 seem like a new machine.  The only drawback I've
> noticed on my 366 MHz 240 is that you *must* use software suspend if you
> put in 320MB ... the BIOS suspend won't work with more than 192MB
> installed.

I'll probably live with the 192 to begin with, although I may well 
upgrade it - thanks for the tip. Does software suspend actually work? I 
thought it was still experimental only.

I hope that KDE will run in that, although I may have to resort to icewm!

> 
> For more fun, add a 5400 RPM hard drive (I have a 40GB 5400 RPM Hitachi
> Travelstar in mine), and the machine will be surprisingly quick.  The
> speed of the original drive in the 240 is pretty dismal, and 40GB drives
> are rather cheap these days.

For now, it really just needs to run Firefox and VNCviewer. But I may 
well upgrade it soon...

> 
> Everything in the 240 has decent Linux drivers, and it should be pretty
> easy to configure once you get Linux installed.
> 
good to know.

> 
> 
>>The challenges:
> 
> 
>>1)Install Linux without *any* bootable device (no floppy; no CDROM; no 
>>internal ethernet; can't etherboot via PCMCIA; I rather doubt that the 
>>USB port will allow booting on a year 2000 era machine.)
> 
> 
> Never tried it.  My solution was to put the hard drive into a laptop
> with a CD-ROM drive, then install from there (installed FC3) and swap
> the drive back into the 240.  You can also pick up an external floppy
> drive for a 240 cheap (most of the older Thinkpads use the same drive -
> can be used on 770s, 240s, 570s, etc.).  Then you could start an
> installation from floppy disk, and use an external USB CD to do the
> actual install (how I insrtalled FC1 on my 240).


Aha! I have a 770....
I didn't realise the drives were compatible.
> 
> 
>>2)Getting it online with WiFi etc.
>>  i)Does anyone know whether the 240 PCMCIA slot is the old-fashioned 
>>16bit cardbus or the newer variety?
> 
> 
> It's compatible with cardbus cards, if that's what you're asking.  I use
> my 240 with a Netgear WG-511 for my home wireless network.

Sorry - I may be confused here. iirc, all the really old (1995 era) 
cards work with newer systems, but newer cards won't even physically fit 
into an older one. Which is which?
> 
> 
>>  ii)Is it even possible to buy a single PCMCIA card with both WiFi and 
>>10/100 ethernet?
> 
> 
> The 240 has a USB (1.0) port.  How about a USB1.0/Ethernet adapter?
> They're very small (like the 240 :) ) and most are supported in Linux.
> That should get you connectivity *and* let you read flash cards / use
> another PCMCIA device at the same time.

I think that's the way to go :-)


Best wishes

Richard