Linux on an old laptop

[Brian Kelsay]

We don't mind helping each other if you are willing to do a bit of research first or as directed.  Don't be afraid to read and learn.  Not everything is a quick fix and a couple of clicks.  It is not in the Windows world either, no matter how easy we make it appear to the people we support.   No one knows everything, but together we can figure anything out.  

Feel free to use the listserv, irc and the twice monthly meetings to get help, but the list is usually what will get you the broadest audience.  There is a meeting tonight if you want someone to lay-on-hands or wave a dead chicken.  There are a couple of "Great Old Ones" that attend occasionally so you can pick their brains.  If you ask me, I may first point you to google, "Google is your friend."  I'll even help you with your Windows problems most  of the time, UNLESS it involves Windows ME.  Some of our recent meeting attendees know how I feel about that abomination of nature.  I won't even help my brother with that piece of crap anymore.  Is that too strong a sentiment?

Anyway, welcome.  We're glad to have you.
 

Brian Kelsay

>>> Christopher Kanaan <> 03/15/05 09:18AM >>>
Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it.  I actually went to Microcenter
last night and picked up a 2.5 to PC IDE adapter and put the laptop
hardrive in my desktop.  From there it was as simple as could be to
remove all the "crap" (thanks for the suggestion crash 3m).  Put the
drive back in the laptop and now it happily boots up to Linux and
recognizes my cardbus ethernet adapter so I can finish putting on the
rest of the goodies.  Thanks again for all who responded, I am
relatively new to this group and this area and it seems to me that
this is great and responsive community (from the activity I have seen
on the list).

-Chris

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 07:10:12 -0600, Brian Kelsay
<> wrote:
> If I know you are coming, I can bring to the meeting an adapter that does this.  You should bring the spare PC and the laptop.  Or if you twist my arm, we could put your drive in my laptop, which has a working CD-ROM.  Bring any screwdrivers you may need to get the drive out of the laptop and/or drive tray.  Most of my tools for this are scattered or unavailable at the moment.
> 
> Brian Kelsay
> 
> 
> >>> crash 3m <> 03/14/05 03:21PM >>>
> There are adapters that will let you put a laptop hard drive into a
> regular system.  You can pick them up at Microcenter for $6 or
> something.  Depending on the distro your wanting to install, you may
> be able to boot from floppy and do a network install as well.
> 
> On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 15:10:13 -0600, Christopher Kanaan
> <> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > I recently acquired an old IBM Thinkpad (550MHz Celeron) with a broken cd-rom
> > drive.  I would like to remove windows and put Linux on there.  I went through
> > the bios menu's and found that it only boots from FLOPPY, CD-ROM, or  HARD DRIVE.
> > It does have USB and a 10/100 cardbus ethernet.  I guess I was wondering if
> > anyone had any creative ideas on how to get Linux on this beast or if anyone had
> > and external (USB) floppy disk drive or an external cd-rom that they could bring
> > to the meeting on Tuesday night.
> >
> > thanks,
> > Chris
>