27 March 2008

The Laptop


I bought this refurbished old laptop very cheap 2 years ago from one premium online shop, with the help of my friend.
I received it in very good, clean, polished and complete condition (along with its original accesories, user manual and recovery cd).
The laptop is very nice built and robust. It must be a top line during its lifetime :)
The installed operating sistem is Original Microsoft® Windows® 98 SE.
I resized the Windows partition to 5 GB, and alocated the rest 15 GB for swap and linux.
All in all I am happy with this laptop, I have tried many distros on it and I can say that this is a nice and linux-friendly laptop.

Specifications:
- Model: Toshiba Tecra 8200

- Intel® Pentium 3-M 850Mhz

- Memory 256 SDRAM

- Hard disk: 20GB

- Display: 14.1 inch (1024x768)

- Video Card: Integrated Graphics Trident XP4

- Internal Optical Drive: DVD ROM

- Sound: Yamaha YMF 754

- Network: Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem (AC 97)

- Wireless connection:

The laptop does not come with internal wireless card, so I bought this USB wireless adapter:
3Com OfficeConnect Wireless 54Mbps 11g Compact USB Adapter (model no: 3CRUSB10075) using Zydas / zd1211 driver.

I guess I am lucky because this USB wireless adapter just works on most distros I tried (including the WPA encryption).

19 March 2008

Catatan selama istirahat ngeblog

Catatan beberapa kegiatan 'penting' selama istirahat ngeblog (yang masih ingat):

- Sukses upgrade ke Ubuntu Gutsy di pc bekas (celeron + RAM 512MB) dan laptop jadul (Toshiba Tecra P III+RAM 256MB)

- Praktek membuat remaster Ubuntu menggunakan Reconstructor dan berhasil membuat Ubuntu+multimedia codecs :)

- Mengunduh dan mencoba macam2 distro yang bagus-bagus:
Freespire, DreamLinux, PUD Linux (Ubuntu mini), Mandriva One Gnome, Linux Mint (versi gnome, xfce, fluxbox), Antix, gOS, BlankOn, Debian Depok (install di virtual box), PCLinuxOS (MiniMe 2008, TinyMe, Muslim Edition), Gobolinux, Sabayon, Kiwi Linux (Ubuntu+multimedia), CrunchBang (Ubuntu+openbox), dan banyak lagi yang lainnya (lupa...)

- Gara2 ketemu CruchBang Linux akhirnya coba-coba install openbox di Ubuntu berikut beberapa aplikasi pendukungnya (pypanel, obmenu, wbar, thunar dsb).
Ubuntu + openbox cukup menyenangkan, minimalis, ringan dan cepat (tapi firefox tetap terasa lambat)

- Ubuntu Gutsy lama-lama terasa lambat baik di pc maupun di laptop

- Akhirnya hard disk di pc celeron mati, maka untuk sementara pc celeron di non-aktif-kan, RAM 512 dipindah ke pc pentium (P4 , RAM jadi 768MB).
Mepis 6.5 yg ada di pc ini terasa sangat cepat dan responsif (karena Mepis nya atau P4 nya atau RAM 768MB nya ?)

- Ubuntu Gutsy di laptop sementara dihapus. Sebetulnya ingin praktek netinstall Debian, tapi kelihatannya wireless usb adapter belum kompatibel.
Akhirnya install Mepis 7.0 yg sekarang kembali berbasis Debian.
Mepis 7.0 di laptop tua terasa cukup ringan dan cepat.
Ada beberapa catatan mengenai pengaturan wireless, fonts, dan suspend / hybernate.

Mudah-mudahan nanti sempat bikin catatan yang lebih detail dari beberapa kegiatan di atas.

Sementara santai dulu sambil nunggu rilis Ubuntu 8.04 dan Mandriva 2008.01 :)