Linux on a Toshiba Texra 500CS Laptop
Some comments on installing Linux on a Tecra 500CS, from the ground up.
When you get the machine, you are steered through a menu to prepare your
machine for Windows 95 (or DOS 6.22 or Windows 3.1, one of your choice).
Also on the disk (1.2Gb) is a Toshiba Demo (150Mb), which you can of course
delete.
First a summary of the specs and my basic conclusions
(in which I have also merged comments from the people acknowledged
at the bottom)
- CPU: P120 (48 bogoMIPS) w/ 256 L2 cache.
- 16Mb memory on board (expandable to ...)
Standard PCI bus.
- onboard 28.8 modem (COM2).
- 12.1" Dual Scan screen. Handles 800*600.
- Trackstick PS/2 mouse.
- APM - not tried yet
- 1.2Gb removable hard drive.
- standard 1.44M floppy.
- Infrared port on the front, not used yet.
- Sounds card, very noise at boot, not very high quality.
- PCMCIA: 2 standard slots.
- modem --
- cd-rom (EXP CD940 CD-ROM) --
Slackware96 (3.1)
Potential Problems
Perhaps not everybody will agree here, or has different experiences,
but these are some of
the "features" I'm less impressed with:
- speakers; loud at startup, and bad quality
Bizarre
Here is a list of bizarre occurences I had on the machine. Some of them
really don't have a reasonable explanation yet, although one can always
suspect the bad disk cache/bad memory problem I may have on this machine.
Questions
Here will be a list of questions for you, from the general public
of T500 owners, that we, the other T500 owners, have not been able to
solve yet. Answers and suggestions can be sent to the email address
listed below.
Also visit the
Linux Laptop Page.
Acknowledgements:
Last updated: 3-jan-97
Problems, Suggestions, Solutions? Email:
teuben@astro.umd.edu