linux

I just took the plunge and converted my main lappy over to Arch, which means actually being able to use relatively new hardware with a minimalist framework.

My latest htop has the desktop humming at under 2% cpu utilization and only ~100mb RAM usage with gnome and monitors using consolekit, gdm, and the regular suite of vanilla gnome programs that run in the background and help out.

So for about 50mb of RAM overhead, that's automatic hotkey recognition and functionality for all the neat thinkpad stuff, simple audio and power management, and network manager has come a long way since the last time I tried it in Feisty Fawn.

with kernel support for intel drivers and the beta flash plugin, I'm actually able to watch fullscreen flash too, which can be notoriously difficult, but works like a dream after a few minutes of configuring my xorg.

Overall, if you're willing to take a half hour to configure things, gnome isn't anything like the resource hog it is on preloaded distributions. More major points for Arch.

Oh god when will the RAM arrive!

I've got a stunning PII Thinkpad, a 600e that is about to get upgraded to its theoretical maximum memory capacity of 288mb.

I've already installed a better battery that maxes out at about 4-5 hours of battery life even using wireless over PCMCIA.

It's been running minimal debian and AwesomeWM for a week now, but once the RAM arrives, it'll be time to see how well this baby handles true Arch, X, and a variety of window managers and applications.

Detailed instructions, and some screenshots to come on how to turn this bad boy into a portable linux dynamo. 

Standard Features - from ThinkWiki

• Intel Mobile Pentium II 300, 366 or 400 CPU
• Neomagic MagicMedia256AV with 2.5MB
• 13.3" (337.8 mm) TFT display with 1024x768 resolution
• 32 or 64MB PC-66 memory standard
• 4.0, 6.4 or 10GB HDD (12mm form factor)
• CS4239/CS4610 Audio controller
• MWave Modem
• IrDA 1.1
• UltraslimBay with one of the following:
  • 1.44MB FDD
  • CD-ROM drive
  • DVD-ROM drive
• (2) Type I, (2) Type II or (1) type III CardBus slots

• ThinkPad 600 - Hardware Maintenance Manual (June 1999) (1,069,060 Bytes)
• I/O locations (flash movie)

I’ve been playing with the Compaq LTE 5400 for the last 24 hours, and it’s a really brilliant device. I’m still fuzzy on a lot of hardware aspects, but I’ll be working on ironing those out.

Specifications: 150Mhz Processor, 80mb RAM, 2.2GB Toshiba IDE Hard Drive, 12.1” SVGA display, Floppy Drive.

I’ve got an old 16-bit PCMCIA ethernet card or two, currently using a 3Com 589 series card, I believe the driver is 3c589_cs. I’ll also be using a Netgear MA401 for wireless later on in the project, after I have consistent wired connectivity. Currently, there seems to be an issue with a 16-bit PCMCIA slot and the cardmgr services for Debian. Still, once cardmgr is started, networking works very well, and a quick round of browsing on links2 demonstrated that text internet is very nice on the machine.

I’m using Debian Etch, and installing the system properly was tricky. I had to use etch because I could not find appropriate floppy images for Lenny, although if they were made available I would seriously consider a format and reinstall. The installation consisted of using four floppy disks: Boot, Root, Network Drivers 1 & 2.

Between those four disks, I had enough to properly set up a network based install of the core system. I was unsure about package selection at first, but so far I’ve only had success with the laptop and core package sets. Those left me with about 1.2GB of free space, and got most things working well.

I’ve installed ALSA, but I don’t think there is actually any sound card. I definitely heard sounds from Windows98SE, but I think they might be using the PC speaker or something. I’ll investigate after I get the core system more stable.

The biggest issue was getting PCMCIA services started and network connectivity *after* the install. For some reason the PCMCIA suite in Etch is terrible, and doesn’t play nicely with 16-bit cards. I’m sure that there is a more elegant workaround for this, but at the moment, I have to manually start the cardmgr daemon to establish a connection with PCMCIA devices and get the network working. Everything else I tried didn’t work, but just starting cardmgr once the drivers had been appropriately loaded into /etc/modules resulted in the card activating and connecting to the wired network. I haven’t tried hot plugging a new card yet, that will be an experiment for a later date.

Xorg worked far far better than I had anticipated. The text seems to be limited to a smaller rectangle in the center of the display when in CLI mode, as it did when DOS was loading for Win98SE. Completely removing my Xorg.conf file from /etc/X11/ resulted in this being fixed on startx, so I now have a beautiful Fullscreen X server. JWM actually worked terribly, but I had much more success with DWM and Openbox. I’m not sure at all which window manager I’ll stick with in the end, but it’s clear that the system can handle a graphical load, slowly, but not so much that it’s annoying. It’s just powerful enough to surf comfortably with Dillo. I’ll be terribly interested to see uzbl running on this machine, although flash will never be happening ever. Still, it was nice to be able to surf around, find some wallpaper, grab it with wget, and set it with hsetroot in my .xinitrc.

Still, from a CLI environment, the system is fantastic. Apt works appropriately and things load as they should. I need to see about framebuffer settings so that the CLI uses the fullscreen a la X, but after that I think I’ll definitely have the cozy old school system that I was looking for when I picked up the computer.

In terms of battery rebuilds, there are several companies offering replacement batteries for the LTE 5400 that are marked as “New”, ranging from $55 to $100, so I might pick one up when the system becomes more stable. I relish the thought of lugging this heavy thick laptop to a Kiva Han coffee shop and confusing all the macbook owners.

Notably: The input system on the laptop is fantastic! It uses an early trackpoint-esque device that is really a breeze to use after my extensive experience with the Thinkpad X61. Between that and the reasonably snappy X interface, the system really performs like a laptop should.

Still left to do: I’ve got to get networking solidly built, and set up tools for compiling so I can build programs not included in the etch repositories. I’ve also got to flash the firmware on the MA401 and hope that I can get WPA without bricking it. I think I’ll be bringing a bunch of different network cards home over the break. Finally, I’ve got to work on audio and see how I can get basic sound working, and turn off that damnable system beep.

My next post will have specifics on how I solve networking and sound issues, and general setup tips for getting a functional Debian desktop on a lovely old Compaq. I’ll also post some screenshots so you can see firsthand how good this thing looks, and see if I can get some configuration files posted as well.