Late model low-end laptopsForum: Laptops Topic: Late model low-end laptops started by: WoofyDugfock Posted by WoofyDugfock on Dec. 29 2004,17:19
I'm looking to get myself a new laptop at the low end of the price spectrum in the very near future and of course want dsl to run on it.I would really appreciate any pointers towards known dsl-compatible current cheapy models. Thanks in advance for any info & best wishes of the Season... Posted by Phil on Dec. 30 2004,15:46
Well, I just installed 0.9.1 on a Toshiba Satellite 410CDT, which has a Pentium 90, 40 megs RAM and an 800 meg hard drive. It's a little sluggish at times but totally functional. Sound works fine after tweaking a bit, decent network performance. Going price on ebay seems to be well under $100.
Posted by panama on Dec. 30 2004,18:47
I have 9.0.1 installed on a ThinkPad 380XD...233MHz proc, 64meg RAM, 1 Gig HDD. Everything installs and works fine. I too have to tweak my sound card but it runs pretty damn fast for such an outdated machine. I would also add that 2 (very small) sticking points with me have been that my PS2 mouse won't scroll and I can't get my serial port to work. But those are hardly reasons to scrap the ONLY Linux distro I have been able to successfully pop in the CD and be up-and-running in about 15 minutes.Good Luck! Posted by WoofyDugfock on Dec. 30 2004,21:58
Thx mucho for your responses; sorry perhaps I should have been more explicit.By 'new' and 'late model' I meant new retail model ie not an oldish secondhand laptop. This is because (a) I will need it as my main dual boot machine for some time into the future, and (b) secondhand bargain laptops are hard to come by in my part of the world. But your posts are still helpful, since I intend to get an older second laptop going with dsl in the near future -- but this new one is the priority at this time. Your info will no doubt be useful for others searching the board. So thanks. Given up on Amilo Celerons (other thread) - - now considering a HP Compaq nx9105 AMD 3000 512/60 (which appears to be good value). From google it appears this will run Mandrake10, Suse 9.1 or Gentoo with fiddling, and will boot from the Gentoo livecd. Nothing about knoppix/dsl though. Posted by Mechcozmo on Jan. 08 2005,05:37
I hear 486 based laptops are going for dirt cheap right now...I think that any laptop made in the last 3, 4 years would do great if you had 128MB of RAM in it. Enough for a RAM disk of DSL and some extra for whatever you might need. Posted by WoofyDugfock on Jan. 08 2005,16:14
Sadly, this is not necessarily true (as I have discovered), and this of course may apply to other Knoppix-derived distros as well. Some laptops just won't boot because of (?) incompatibility with certain hardware, apparently. Some say I could have more luck with Kanotix. Also, at least according to Rapidweather, late model Dells require the syslinux version of dsl. I've been told that Knoppix 3.7 has the 2.6 kernel which contains increased support for AMD 64-bit chips, so the large r3000 family of new low-end HP Compaq laptops under various diverse names using AMD XP or XP-M (32-bit crippled) chips might just boot with Knoppix 3.7 and the 'knoppix26' cheatcode. It seems these may not boot with knoppix versions up to & including 3.6. I know all this because I've been plaguing various forums trying to find out if the cut-price Compaq HP nx9105 (XP-M 3000+ 1.6GHz cpu), which I would like to buy, will boot Knoppix and related livecds (and dsl). I got one shot at it and it wouldn't boot dsl 0.9.0.1 or 0.8.1.1 or knoppix 3.2 (i think it was). The lack of quality information on newer laptops and knoppix is a nuisance. Now, if I could just get that store manager to let me put my knoppix 3.7 livecd in his untouched virginal nx9105 .... Of course I suppose I can always run dsl embedded within WinXP on a new model machine .. or can I? Are there hardware issues there as well? EDIT: Just noticed < this >. Perhaps I should have tried dsl 0.7.2. Posted by Mr. Cool on Jan. 12 2005,01:51
I have a Compaq Presario 2100 which I guess would be a lower end newer laptop. I bought it brand new in early 2004, it was the 3rd cheapest model the store had.It works perfectly with DSL if you run with the acpi=off boot parameter. If you don't include this parameter it will lock up during boot. X works, sound works, network card works, firewire works, pcmcia slot works, usb works, all without any extra configuring by me. The internal winmodem does not work though, although I don't think this is a problem for many people, and besides my laptop is probably the last model to have an internal winmodem. Posted by WoofyDugfock on Jan. 25 2005,12:01
Thanks for your feedback Mr Cool I'll check it out if I come across one.
Posted by marcovivaldo@tiscali.it on July 21 2005,17:52
I have a Compaq presario 2100 too...but DSL crash...why? Posted by mgmont on July 21 2005,20:09
Mr. Cool, thanks for sharing the information about your Compaq Presario 2100. My son has one and we tried running the DSL live cd and it just locked up and gave us a black screen. He did not seem too interested at the time, so we did not try anymore. I will suggest that we try the apci=off boot parameter and see if it will work.Thanks! |