Installing Linux on a Laptop PC
Here's the specs:
- ProStar NP5200
- Pentium-133
- 16Meg ram
- 1.3gig hard disk, removable
- 4x CDROM built-in
- 3.5" floppy built-in
- PCI bus:*
- Cirrus Logic video
- (?) PCI Card
- UMC PCI to ISA bridge for notebook (with IDE support)
- IO read data port for ISA Plug and Play enumerator
- UMC Pentium(r) CPU to PCI bridge for notebook
- 12" diagonal color LCD, 800x600 capable
- TouchPad
- PCMCIA:*
- Vadem PCIC compatible PCMCIA controller
- IBM Ethernet Credit Card Adapter II
- Standard 28800 bps Modem
- no-name 28.8 fax/modem card
- RPTI EP400 network card
- price about $4200 from Broadax Systems, Inc. (BSI)
* PCI bus & PCMCIA info was taken from Win95 Control Panel System
Properties.
Linux installation from
Walnut Creek Slackware 3.0
cdrom:
- Used FIPS in DOS to repartion:
- 1000 meg for MSDOS/Win95
- 300 meg for Linux
- made "aidecd" boot disk ("idecd" wouldn't read cdrom reliably)
- made color root disk
- booted
- ran fdisk
- ran mkswap
- mounted hdc on /cdrom
- ran setup
- did install ... no problems
- configured 1.2.13 kernel
- made zImage boot floppy (1.2.13 kernel)
- rebooted from 1.2.13 zImage floppy
- hdc complained...unreliable cdrom reads.
- configured 1.3.20 kernel
- compiled kernel
- made new zImage boot floppy (1.3.20 kernel)
- rebooted from 1.3.20 zImage floppy
- no disk or cdrom problems
- compiled & ran pcmcia 2.6.3; software ran
- neither modem nor network card were recognized
- downloaded & compiled pcmcia 2.8.8; worked correctly!
- I haven't tried to configure or run
X
yet; I'll send an update
if I do.
- I configured the network stuff, including tftp & it all worked
perfectly. I have no impression on network performance of the
network card.
Notes:
I am not the primary user of this laptop; those who will be the
primary users aren't Linux-aware, so I didn't install Lilo. I may
eventually try loadlin, but for now booting the kernel from floppy is
sufficient.
The TouchPad is a bit annoying to me (I used it in Win95 as I haven't
run X yet). My fingers are large & as I remove my finger from the
TouchPad after precisely positioning the cursor, the cursor tends to
move 'til the last part of my skin leaves the pad. From what I've
heard about trackball poor reliability, tho, a TouchPad may likely be
a better choice. If this were my laptop, I'd pack around a serial
Logitech MouseMan for extended usage.
The ctrl key is horridly placed for my fat fingers!
Compared to my 486DX-33, the kernel-compile on this Pentium-133 simply
flew! Didn't have time to run to the fridge for a beer, go to
the can, anything! :-)
Special thanks to Ken Harker for being the first to to HTML'ize this
information & making it available to the Linux community. I just
didn't think of that; & besides, his Web pages have a ton more Linux
info than mine! :-)