> > I am seriously considering replacing Win95 on my Toshiba 500cdt with one > of the linuxes,Good Idea. By the way, I run both linux and Win95 on one machine. If you do so please get this disk patch for win95 from the Microsoft homepage (try search) to prevent some nasty bugs with the disk driver, or make sure you reboot to DOS each time before starting linux (I use loadlin)
> > Some issues: > > 1. Which version of Linux do you recommend? Red Hat 5.0? Caldera? ???I use Slackware 3.3 but Chris Shaw (Chrisshaw@flagshipnet.com) uses RedHat. Slackware was very straightforward to install ask Chris for his experience.
> > 2. LAN connectivity is important.I use ppp-dial up and I used a Ethernet card during installation (I made floppy's for the base system and the network, installed linux from diskettes, then started the network the kernel with the network drivers recognized the card and I was immediately on the net. then I downloaded the rest of the Slackware files No big problem I have fetchmail and sendmail and procmail and all that running to do my email from here. (like this one)
> > 3. Good power management is desirable.Well it has a lot of features, but I run it mostly connected to power. so I don't know.
> > My goal: > > Ideally, I'd like to use the laptop as a demo machine for my Java > projects. This means that it needs to run a Java-accessible RDBMS, a > decent web server, an up-to-date version of Java. From what I know this > software is available today on Linux. The main issue is that the > environment is reliable, relatively easy on the battery, and available > to the other machines via the LAN here.Java is part of the newer kernels. I had the apache web server up and running within 4 hours (on a different machine but the same linux).
Some further pointers:
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/
http://www.cck.uni-kl.de/misc/tecra710/
http://www.stanford.edu/~crusius/tecra/
http://www.linux.org/hardware/laptop.html
Yours
Martin
PS: X windows seems to be a problem so I include a message that I did send to Chris
> > I found you in the database as a source for info on this combination. I > am looking for some information on getting the X server working > correctly with my version of Linux, Red Hat 5.0. The system doesn't have > any setup for a laptop, much less this one. Do you have any info on > getting Linux and X working well with the laptop screen at 800x600? > Thanks for any help you can give.Yes, I have X running nicely.
I use Slackware 3.3, i think, the latest version which I downloaded using ftp. I installed it with the setup program without much problems.
I got then the newest release of XFree from www.xfree86.org They have a special version of the SVGA driver for the chips&technology chip. So I upgraded the Slackware version of my driver to the newest release of the XFree distribution and then replaced the /usr/X11/bin/XF86_SVGA by the same file for the C&T driver. using
XF86_SVGA -showconfigit prints:
XFree86 Version 3.3.1 / X Window System (protocol Version 11, revision 0, vendor release 6300) Release Date: August 4 1997 If the server is older than 6-12 months, or if your card is newer than the above date, look for a newer version before reporting problems. (see http://www.XFree86.Org/FAQ) Operating System: Linux 2.0.30 i586 [ELF] Configured drivers: SVGA: server for SVGA graphics adaptors (Patchlevel 0): ct65520, ct65525, ct65530, ct65535, ct65540, ct65545, ct65546, ct65548, ct65550, ct65554, ct65555, ct68554, ct64200, ct64300Then X already worked somehow. I played around with xf86config and generated an /etc/XF86Config file. I searched the web for some good Mode lines and finally came up with the file that I include below. If works fine on my machine for 8, 16, and 24 bit per pixel with 800x600. I don't use any smaller resolution. In the XF86Config file note the following lines:
#computed Modeline "800x600" 35.171 800 832 864 928 600 608 616 632 #low good Modeline "800x600" 35.357 800 832 864 928 600 608 616 632 #high good Modeline "800x600" 35.496 800 832 864 928 600 608 616 632 Modeline "800x600" 35.427 800 832 864 928 600 608 616 632The mode line without the # is the line actually used by the system the computed line is the one I started with. Then I started to modify the frequencies used, by adding 0.05 0.1 0.15 ... or subtracting 0.05 .... then I came up with the frequency 35.371 This was already pretty good. I modified this frequency to find the upper limit and the lower limit where I would get a good picture (given as high good and low good and then I took the value just in the middle of the two.
I think these numbers are a bit machine dependent. So I would suggest that you start out with the mode line as given here. If that does not work, that is you don't get a stable image, then try frequencys higher or lower. I would suggest an increment of 0.01 Once you have a working value fine tune it by finding out where the center of the workable range is. I don't have a good theory why certain modelines work and others don't. The TFT display seems not to use most of the modeline anyway, but it seems to use the frequency.
Good luck. I would like to hear from your results.
Yours
Martin
For further questions please mailto: ruckert@rz.mathematik.uni-muenchen.de
My /etc/XF86Config file