Putting Linux on a 1st Gen Tablet PC w/o a CDROM

**xanimal** · 01-25-2005, 03:08 PM

Ok A challenge for you guys. I have a first generation Tablet PC, a Fujitsu Point 1600 to be exact, that has no CD-Rom. I would like to put some form of a stripped down linux that wont totally kill this machine. It a P166 MMx with 96 MB Ram and a 10GB HD(pulled from my old laptop). Now I can put the that harddrive in my current laptop and make it bootable to DOS, install Windows 98 from the HD. But what can you do about the Linux side of things? I didnt know if anyone knew of a SUPER light weight Distro that would work on this thing for my mp3 player.

Any advise or is this a lost cause?
Steve

**dodgetimes2** · 01-25-2005, 04:20 PM

You could try putting the drive back in your laptop with CD-ROM and copy the Linux installation files to your hard drive.

**xanimal** · 01-25-2005, 04:27 PM

So then how do you boot into the Linux installation? Then it would install on itself?

So I know how to install Windows on one machine and move it to another and work through driver issues but I dont know how Linux works when swapping with machines.

**septicdeath** · 01-25-2005, 04:54 PM

no usb ports or pcmcia ports to add a usb, then use a usb cdrom or usb memory stick, thats how I did my cd-less device...Got a 1gig usb cigar drive and The redhat distro of linux, bios mounted it as a usb drive, linux mounted it and booted and installed from there. THe linux kernal will install into memory and you can move the files on a per cd basis to the medium...

Just a suggestion.

**xanimal** · 01-25-2005, 05:03 PM

I do have USB and PCMCIA. I'll give that a shot. Might go for Damn Small Linux or something.
Thanks!!

**mrmontebuilder** · 01-27-2005, 12:00 AM

How about getting one those hard drive adapters that go from 2.5" laptop to 3.5" PC size??They had them at compusa for like $15 and this way you can install it in your home computer as a cd drive and just install the linux on it from the cd rom in the home pc.This has worked 5 times on different computer both laptop and tablet with cdrom drives for us with 100% success.

**xanimal** · 01-28-2005, 01:49 PM

Ok I plan doing the what you suggested this weekend. Now what flavor could I use that wont absolutly kill this machine?

**s003apr** · 01-29-2005, 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by xanimal

Ok A challenge for you guys. I have a first generation Tablet PC, a Fujitsu Point 1600 to be exact, that has no CD-Rom. I would like to put some form of a stripped down linux that wont totally kill this machine. It a P166 MMx with 96 MB Ram and a 10GB HD(pulled from my old laptop). Now I can put the that harddrive in my current laptop and make it bootable to DOS, install Windows 98 from the HD. But what can you do about the Linux side of things? I didnt know if anyone knew of a SUPER light weight Distro that would work on this thing for my mp3 player.

Any advise or is this a lost cause?
Steve

If you have never worked with linux, I would recommend just playing with it on a regular desktop first. The popular linux distros can be easy to work with and use but when you start with the customizations and such, things can get a lot more complicated.

Also rare hardware can be difficult to work with.

If you are anxious to get something working however, I would just pick something like knoppix which is pretty easy to work with and very versatile when it comes to hardware support. Install it on the HD using your laptop and then put it in the tablet.

Also, if you are going to be using it for multimedia purposes, consider using something like Geexbox

Here are some url's of interest.

http://www.softwarekombinat.de/linux-point510.html
http://www.geexbox.org/en/index.html
http://www.distrowatch.org

**roystonlodge** · 04-21-2008, 08:34 PM

My apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I was wondering if anybody has has success with this project? I just got a Fujitsu Point 1600 with no hard drive. I intend to put a compact flash card in the hard drive bay, and try to get it running on Damn Small Linux. There a very few links on the net about Linux and the Point 1600, and they're all a few years old, so I was hoping for an update on this thread.

**tripzero** · 04-21-2008, 09:59 PM

as long as you can boot to cdrom/usb/cfdisk there is a way to get Linux on it. The question would be, does it have a cdrom or usb that it can boot too? Alternatively, you can image a livecd onto a harddrive and install it from there on another partition (of the same drive).