purplecatty
Active Member
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2007
- Messages
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Hey Linux Users!,
I have an old Dell Latitude CSX-H Laptop that had been collecting dust in my garage for two years due to accidential damage to its hard drive that I dropped 6 ft to cement floor while trying to store it on high shelf. It can't boot from USB drive via BIOS nor don't have built in CDrom drive. It does have external cdrom which are a hassle to carry.
Finally, my Acer Aspire's Seagate hard drive got corrupted and won't boot fully to XP (it hungs halfway or popped error mssg "need xp cd and hit 'r' for Repair") and chkdisk takng forever, it spins but can be repaired anyway by installing Grub or Lilo. I bought a new 120gb Western Digital hdd for it. I was able to use old 80gb hdd to Dell Latitude to give it a lease of new life. I'm planning on to treat it like a netbook. I had been looking into Linux distro that are compatible with my old 'anchor' (cuz it's thin but heavy). I want it be fast, reliable. I don't have wifi card (I used to have Belkin Wifi card which are not compatible with linux distro anyway, I plan to get one that are 100% compatible). I MIGHT dualboot with XP and use XPlite to clean out craps to make it speedier (done this and it beats my Acer ). I would plan to install SprintSpeed Blackberry modem software to allow me to go online.
So the config of old Dell laptop:
500mhz Pentuim 3 (it is hackable to 700mhz by swapping out 500mhz to 700mhz processor cuz there are similiar code on processor that "fools" BIOS into thinking it's 500mhz processor)
256mb Sodimm PC100 (it says 384mb max while listed 256mb max)
4mb graphic memory
PCMIAa card slot (dual)
1 USB 1.1
80gb Seagate st98823a ATA100 hdd (formerly Acer's)
12inch LCD screen
VGA jack
Parallel Port
Synapic mouse
Keyboard
Slot for external drive
Dock slot
Keyboard/mouse serial jack
External enclosed 16x cdrom drive
6 cell NiCad battery.
It doesn't have modem or Onboard NIC in it. The only access to network is Netcard or docking station.
That's basically it, no extras, it used to be a business laptop for Texas Instrument for years. It's thin profile and heavy, approx 5lbs(metal alloy all around 'aluminuim/zinc' I guess) and looked rugged.
Luckily, I have docking station that have 2 USB 1.1, 10/100 mpbs ethernet jack, monitor jack, keyboard/mouse jack that came along with laptop. My brother bought it years ago and it broke so he gave it to me and I bought replacement mobo and gave it a lease of new life. It was pretty zippy on pared down XP.
Now I have a hard time decide which Linux distro fits for my old "anchor". I'm getting over it cuz many 'lite' linux distro that works with older machines. I don't care what kind of desktop, Gnome, KDE, IceWin, ect. Desktop is desktop! My laptop can't do Compiz anyway I be surprise if peewee grpahic can do it! (It did ran Myst Riven game just fine even it require 32mb graphic on XP.)
Give me suggestions!
Puppy Linux
Mepis
CentOS
Slackware
Slax
Damn Small Linux (that's the least I would need)
Knoppix (unsure cuz of new kernel, tried 2.6 and it won't work, dunno abt the most recent)
I am not sure if it can run Xbuntu.
If u happen to know any 'lite' Linux distro not on the list, please let me know! I love to try out.
I used to run some LiveCD Distro above listed three years ago and most works. I ran Ubuntu and it did arrived desktop, slowly.
One of my biggest issue is that I can't use my Sprint BB Curve on Linux distro. Sprint doesn't bother to have it programmed for Linux user
unless...... Someone got a hack for bb!
Last thing, let's cross finger that 80gb hdd would finally fixed and able to make it useful.
Catty
I have an old Dell Latitude CSX-H Laptop that had been collecting dust in my garage for two years due to accidential damage to its hard drive that I dropped 6 ft to cement floor while trying to store it on high shelf. It can't boot from USB drive via BIOS nor don't have built in CDrom drive. It does have external cdrom which are a hassle to carry.
Finally, my Acer Aspire's Seagate hard drive got corrupted and won't boot fully to XP (it hungs halfway or popped error mssg "need xp cd and hit 'r' for Repair") and chkdisk takng forever, it spins but can be repaired anyway by installing Grub or Lilo. I bought a new 120gb Western Digital hdd for it. I was able to use old 80gb hdd to Dell Latitude to give it a lease of new life. I'm planning on to treat it like a netbook. I had been looking into Linux distro that are compatible with my old 'anchor' (cuz it's thin but heavy). I want it be fast, reliable. I don't have wifi card (I used to have Belkin Wifi card which are not compatible with linux distro anyway, I plan to get one that are 100% compatible). I MIGHT dualboot with XP and use XPlite to clean out craps to make it speedier (done this and it beats my Acer ). I would plan to install SprintSpeed Blackberry modem software to allow me to go online.
So the config of old Dell laptop:
500mhz Pentuim 3 (it is hackable to 700mhz by swapping out 500mhz to 700mhz processor cuz there are similiar code on processor that "fools" BIOS into thinking it's 500mhz processor)
256mb Sodimm PC100 (it says 384mb max while listed 256mb max)
4mb graphic memory
PCMIAa card slot (dual)
1 USB 1.1
80gb Seagate st98823a ATA100 hdd (formerly Acer's)
12inch LCD screen
VGA jack
Parallel Port
Synapic mouse
Keyboard
Slot for external drive
Dock slot
Keyboard/mouse serial jack
External enclosed 16x cdrom drive
6 cell NiCad battery.
It doesn't have modem or Onboard NIC in it. The only access to network is Netcard or docking station.
That's basically it, no extras, it used to be a business laptop for Texas Instrument for years. It's thin profile and heavy, approx 5lbs(metal alloy all around 'aluminuim/zinc' I guess) and looked rugged.
Luckily, I have docking station that have 2 USB 1.1, 10/100 mpbs ethernet jack, monitor jack, keyboard/mouse jack that came along with laptop. My brother bought it years ago and it broke so he gave it to me and I bought replacement mobo and gave it a lease of new life. It was pretty zippy on pared down XP.
Now I have a hard time decide which Linux distro fits for my old "anchor". I'm getting over it cuz many 'lite' linux distro that works with older machines. I don't care what kind of desktop, Gnome, KDE, IceWin, ect. Desktop is desktop! My laptop can't do Compiz anyway I be surprise if peewee grpahic can do it! (It did ran Myst Riven game just fine even it require 32mb graphic on XP.)
Give me suggestions!
Puppy Linux
Mepis
CentOS
Slackware
Slax
Damn Small Linux (that's the least I would need)
Knoppix (unsure cuz of new kernel, tried 2.6 and it won't work, dunno abt the most recent)
I am not sure if it can run Xbuntu.
If u happen to know any 'lite' Linux distro not on the list, please let me know! I love to try out.
I used to run some LiveCD Distro above listed three years ago and most works. I ran Ubuntu and it did arrived desktop, slowly.
One of my biggest issue is that I can't use my Sprint BB Curve on Linux distro. Sprint doesn't bother to have it programmed for Linux user
unless...... Someone got a hack for bb!
Last thing, let's cross finger that 80gb hdd would finally fixed and able to make it useful.
Catty
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