I ordered the laptop on the web at the
Tuxtops
Site. The tuxtops offer was the best for the price. Additionally,
one does not have pay for an other (inferior) operating system, the
hardware (even the internal Modem) works great with Linux (which are
additional expenses for other laptops).
About a week after ordering, I opened a box delivered with FedEx.
The machine was running out of the box.
Installed is Redhat Linux 6.1 .
An additional tuxtops installation script
asked first a few question. The laptop was immediatly
attached to my other network via ethernet, my private data transferred.
A working laptop pretty instantly.
Cables to CD and Floppy which had by accident not been shipped arrived
(without having me to ask) 15 hours later also by Fedex.
Later in the night, I decided to try to install the
MetroX server , which I'm run successfully on my
Dell desktop machine
(with Linux Mandrake ) . The card
is not on the list of supported cards and it was not a surprise that I can
momentarily forget the MetroX server. During the installation, I accidently
removed a file. I obtained it the next day back (by e-mail) from
Tuxtops support.
Lesson: not only backup of critical files like /etc but also X
stuff like /usr/X11R6 and of course from /boot and /lib/modules
(the later because there are
some modules (for the sound card and internal modem for example),
which can not be found in the redhat distribution).
On X: The xdm Manager needs still quite long to startup.
Netscape was running fine under Gnome but refused then to run under Kde
and under fvwm. Reinstalling the rpm packages from the CD
rpm -i --force netscape ...
helped. The XF86_FBDev server for the Silicon Motion graphics card
worried me first: Netscape had initially problems
with complex javascript pages like
in my site
dynamical-systems.org . The problems disappeared later.
Network (ethernet via PC card),
Sound (great quality) , CD , Floppy ,
internal Modem worked great without having to do do anything
special about it. An additional parallel port Zip drive (which I had
still lying around) was attached by loading some modules and mounting:
insmod parport_pc
insmod parport_probe
insmod ppa
mkdir /zip
mount -t msdos /dev/sda4 /zip
In summary: if you want a running Lynux system on a ultralight laptop, if
you are short of time, don't want to shop and pay for additional hardware
or don't want to pay for an inferior operating system (you can however
have dual boot as an option), the Tuxtops
Ultralight is the right choice. If you can afford it, take the Pentium
version and more memory since the X server for the
Silicon Motion Graphics card needs some power (until hardware acceleration
for this card will be supported).
Austin, TX, 5/15/2000
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For more photos, click here
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Hardware: Tuxtops Ultralight
laptop |
|---|
| Processor |
433 MHz Intel Celeron MMX |
| Memory |
128KB (Celeron), 64 MB SDRAM |
| Chip Set |
Intel 440 BX |
| Graphics |
11.3 inch SGA , TFT, 1024x768,16M |
| Card |
128-bit Silicon Motion LynxEM 710 |
| Video RAM |
2MB |
| Video out |
Up to 1024x768, 64K color (CRT) |
| Audio |
ESS Techn. Maestro-2E, 3D, |
| CD-ROM |
External 24x CD ROM (via IDE) |
| HD |
6 GB |
| Floppy |
External 3.5 inch, (parallel port) |
| Keyboard |
85-key QWERTY, embed. numeric keypad |
| Mouse |
Touch pad with 2 buttons |
| Modem |
Intern. Lucent Microelec. 56KB |
| Video I/O |
15-pin VGA Port |
| Sound I/O |
Stereo-out, Microphone-in, Phone |
| Infrared |
4MB IrDA-compliant (Fast-Infrared) |
| I/O |
Parallel, Serial Port, USB |
| PC slot |
TYPE I/II PC Card, Zoomed Video |
| PC card |
Linksys, NP10T 10 Mbps Ethernet |
| Battery |
6-cell prismatic Lithium-Ion, 30W |
| AC adapter |
100~240V, 47~63Hz,50W,20V,2.5A |
| APM |
Power Suspend / Resume capability |
| Dimension |
270mm (W) x 218mm (D) x 28 mm (H) |
| Weight |
3.9 lbs / 1.8 Kgs |
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