No moving parts!Forum: Laptops Topic: No moving parts! started by: zode Posted by zode on April 10 2006,16:33
Greetings, new DSL user here. My compliments to the developers! I wanted to use an old IBM Thinkpad 600E laptop as a music streaming server for the house, and I found, after trying a number of live CDs, that DSL 2.3 detected the IBM CardBus Ethernet adapter (Xircom) that I have, and I found the solution on these boards for getting sound to work on this machine. Very nice!Then I pulled the hard drive from the machine, and I have verified that I can boot DSL from the CDROM with no hard drive in the machine without even fooling with the BIOS. My question is: as the Thinkpad sits there streaming music via XMMS, and no further input is made on the mouse or keyboard, will the CDROM drive continue to spin? I'd like it to just go to idle. I did not use the "toram" option on boot, just took the defaults. If I used "toram" would this ensure that the CDROM drive spins down and sits there until I need something from it? And/or, once booted "toram" could I eject the DSL CD (which would ensure nothing's spinning)? Thanks. Posted by doobit on April 10 2006,16:41
It will spin whenever there is a call for it to unpack something in the OS. If you use the toram option and have enough RAM, then it will not need the CDROM after it boots. I believe you could eject the CD once the OS is loaded in RAM after that.
Posted by zode on April 10 2006,21:23
Thanks, doobit. Just confirmed that I could eject the CD after boot. I have to say that DSL rocks...perfect for this kind of usage and much more.
Posted by styrlicas on April 15 2006,09:05
Zode,what do you think of laptop version of "Nano-ITX Computer The Damn Small Machine!" < http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/store....Machine > ? Does a solution exist to replace notebook HD with a CF card? Is it possible to boot of CF card in pcmcia slot? Did you try to take a CD out of a drive, so nothing would be spinning? What would be battery life then? Posted by Neb on April 18 2006,02:14
I purchased a CF adapter from LogicSoft, used a 2gb CF card and installed 2.3 full hd install. I'm using it in a digital picture frame. I used an old Dell C600, took out the CD drive, obviously no hard disk, removed the cpu fan.I have NO moving parts. It's very nice. Put it into a shadow box frame, hot glued it all together, runs a slide show very nice. I can upload pics via WinSCP, remote control via VNC. Posted by styrlicas on April 22 2006,03:35
Could you post links for CF adapter, please.Thanks! Posted by humpty on April 22 2006,04:56
here's one,< http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=16 > you will also find thin-clients on this site.:cool: Posted by Neb on April 24 2006,19:21
I used the top one listed on this page. It works great, just ensure you're using a newer CF card. I had problems with an older 2GB card. < http://www.logicsupply.com/advance....x=0&y=0 > Posted by phasmatisnox on April 30 2006,08:04
Wow, this is almost exactly what my setup is, a 600E and everything- except using a CF card with a PCMCIA adapter instead of the CD-ROM. Forgive me if my questions are 'out there', I'm brand new to DSL. Do you all think it is possible to install a frugal install on a 128MB CF card and boot from it? Neb, I see you were talking about a 2GB card- is that much space needed? I have only 128MB of RAM in the laptop. My ultimate goal is an MP3-playing car-PC. Music stored on an 80GB USB HDD. I'm excited to learn about DSL, I think it would work great for me. Posted by underdog5004 on May 10 2006,18:46
You should be just fine with a 128Mb CF card...the standard is a 64Mb CF card, as that is the minimum size required (Actually, 50Mb is required...but you want more space for whatever)
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