OSS on Toshiba 490XCDT

[Ole Juul]

I am posting this here because I have already unwittingly hijacked two other threads when I have mentioned this project. Basically I am just reporting on my project. Feel free to take this thread wherever you want.

It seems that, although this is very much a software forum, there is a lot of interest in hardware and making it work. This is always an issue and usually dealt with by choosing components carefully, or buying a well known newer box.

In this case I have an 1998 Toshiba laptop which is just on the edge to being completely obsolete for desktop use. My needs are simple, but the most important is that it run a workable desktop and that the OS and software be free and open source. The machine has a PII 266MHz CPU, 128MB ram, a CD drive, one USB, and a PCMCIA 10/100 network connection.

My first preference was to install FreeBSD and Fluxbox. BSD went on like a charm, but I could not get the X server working with the S3 VIRGE/MX video adapter. So, I tried Ubuntu Server but that requires more resources and just balked during install. Next up was Debian, and a minimal install worked like a charm and went quite fast. X11 and Fluxbox slipped in quite nicely too. However, there are still issues, but they look to be solvable by someone at my amateur level.

Current issues are automount, shutting down Fluxbox, and external mouse. The mouse problem is probably simple and consist firstly of finding a PS2 mouse. I'll get that figured out later. The first priority is automount. So far I have installed autofs and udev. Now I need to configure autofs and I'm sure it's not that hard but it does require a bit of reading. I'll get there.

PS: I note that DSL appears to run off a live CD quite well but then my problems would be in setting that up, which is a whole other kettle of fish. I am not really fond of minimal distros with branding and everything set up as if it was someone elses machine. It just doesn't seem right to me. Another suggestion was Arch Linux. That comes across as being well suited to my tastes. However, I'll forgo that for now as I am not prepared for the learning curve at this point - preferring to use Debian or FreeBSD based solutions since I'm relatively comfortable in those environments.

[vinnywright]

Re: OSS on Toshiba 490XCDT

you could try U-lite I have that running on a dell insperon 2100 700Mhz CPU 128RAM ATI mobility GPU

and it runs well

http://u-lite.org/

VINNY

[dibl]

Re: OSS on Toshiba 490XCDT

I'd be tempted to try Parted Magic on that oldie. It's not designed for general desktop use -- more of a toolkit, but I'm thinking if all you really want is a point and click browser launcher, and some minimal utilities and editors, it might be enough. It loads in RAM, so the old hard drive won't slow it down. It seems very adaptable to all kinds of hardware -- I dunno whether it will like your GPU or not.

2 cents' worth.

[Ole Juul]

Re: OSS on Toshiba 490XCDT

Thanks for the suggestions vinny and dibl.

I solved the automount problem. Automount is very easy with autofs. Here are the instructions in case someone wants to automount removable devices.

Install autofs and udev (udev is probably already there):
apt-get install autofs udev
Find name of usb device if not already known:
dmesg | grep scsi -A 3

Add this: /var/autofs/removable /etc/auto.removable --timeout=2
To this: /etc/auto.master

Make file called: /etc/auto.removable
Copy this to it:
cdrom -fstype=iso9660,ro,sync,nodev,nosuid :/dev/cdrom
floppy -fstype=auto,sync,nodev,nosuid :/dev/fd0
usbdrive -fstype=vfat,uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=002 :/dev/sda1

Note that you need to make this file fit your specs. That means comment out (#) the
devices you don't need, Making sure the UID is correct, and that the device name
at the end of the line is correct.

Then restart the autofs and you're good to go:
/etc/init.d/autofs restart

Example:
Plug in a USB drive go to
/var/autofs/remobable/usbdrive
and you will be able to read and write.
Put in a disk and you will see the CDrom drive at:
/var/autofs/removable/cdrom

I got this information from this site.