[ltp] Re: IDE / 44 pin Compact Flash Adapter

[Richard Neill]

Brent Brian wrote:
> The adapter replaces the HARD DRIVE using the 44 IDE CONNECTOR.  Just 
> unplug the hard drive and put two COMPACT FLASH cards on the adpater and 
> plug it in where the hard drive used to go.

I did this with my X20. It's very nice and quiet!
You can get single IDE-CF adapters for about £5 on eBay.
> 
> The needle nosed pliers will be needed to insert the card into the hard 
> drive bay.

Suggest you pack it in with a little foam to support it. If you move the 
machine too much, it may otherwise come loose, since the weight of the 
CF cards is supported only by the connector.

On some models (eg X20), you also need to devise a way to keep the drive 
bay door shut; I used a piece of carefully shaped balsa wood.

HTH,

Richard


P.S. You can get Ubuntu to fit on 1GB, complete with KDE. Mandriva 2006 
would fit too; haven't tried 2007 that way. You cannot install 
Gentoo/Redhat/Suse at all on 1GB. But I really urge you to buy a 2GB or 
even 4GB card. Otherwise, you have to either

  - start with a server install, and be ruthless about apt-get clean, and
    rm -rf things like /usr/share/doc  (du -sh helps too)

  - install on a bigger machine, then copy the root directory, chroot to 
it, remove packages, then install that (use rsync, and a live CD).