Version 0.2
Copyright © 2005 by
Zack Smith
Summary
The LTE 5280 is not a powerful machine,
but it could be used
very effectively as a server or as a laptop to take to cafes.
And it does have a very good quality TFT display; mine is
bright, clear, and has good contrast.
This laptop's main disadvantage is the low-quality keyboard.
Introduction
This document describes how to install Slackware Linux 10
on a Compaq LTE 5280, which
normally has no CDROM drive. The 5280
also has no USB port.
The 5280 is overall a nice machine, with a bright, crisp, 12 inch
TFT display. It has adequate ports. Its
Pentium 120 CPU is quite sufficient for most
activities.
The 5280's main deficiencies
are
-
The stock hard drive uses some sort of proprietary caddy or tray,
so upgrading it may be involved or impossible.
-
It lacks a CDROM drive or USB port, making Linux installation
more difficult.
-
Its keyboard is
low quality, therefore it is advisable to connect a PS/2 keyboard.
My 5280
The following is some useful data on my system obtained from
/proc/cpuinfo, lspci, manual, etc.
| Processor | Intel Pentium 120 MHz
| | Level 1 Cache | 16 kB
| | Level 2 Cache | 256kB L2
| | RAM | 80 MB
| | Buses | ISA, PCI?
| | Hard Drive type | type= 1.3 GB (810 MB on some)
| | CD-ROM | None
| | Screen | 11.3 inch color, active TFT
| | Video Processor | Cirrus Logic GD 7543 Viking
| | Video RAM | ?
| | Video Resolution (LCD) | 800x600
| | Ports | Serial, Parallel, PCMCIA (2), PS/2, video
| | Mouse | Trackpoint (eraserhead)
| | PCMCIA Slots | 2 type II slots
| | PCMCIA CardBus compatibility | ?
| | PCMCIA Controller | Cirrus PD672x
| | Sound Hardware | ?
| | Battery Type | removed
| | Weight (PC) | without battery: ?
| | Weight (AC adaptor) | ?
| | AC Adaptor Output | 18 V, 1.9 A
| | Modem | None
|
Why this distro?
I always use Slackware, because I have also found it to be
reliably put together and rationally organized.
Slackware is slightly different than other distros in that
the emphasis is still as much on the command line as it is
on the fancy bloated (lame) GUI systems like Gnome and KDE.
The command-line fixation is important
with regards to the 5280,
because the CPU is slower and the stock hard drive
(on my system, at least) is only 1.3 GB.
Installation
I was able to install most of the A, AP, L, D, and Y series
packages into my 5280's 1 gig Linux partition with
600 megs to spare. This required that I remove stuff
that I didn't need like CD writing, music playback, GTK libraries,
Java, and RAID utilities. I added a few of the N series utilities
and I still had 597 megs free.
The Procedure
This laptop has no CDROM drive, so we cannot install from CD.
This laptop has no USB port, so we cannot install from flash drive.
Here is an installation procedure for getting around these problems.
It requires that you still have Windows on your system.
If you do not have Windows, you will first need to install
an older Linux like Slackware 3.6, and use that to accomplish
part 2 and part 3 below.
- Create the Bare.i, Install.1, and Install.2 disks which
come with Slackware using the RAWRITE.EXE program. This is an
MSDOS program but you can run it under Windows.
- You need to have two partitions: one that is
about 200 megs (drive C:) and one that is the rest.
If your hard drive is only 1 partition,
run FIPS.EXE on it reduce its size. You may need to
defrag the drive first under Windows. Of course, you should
remove all unnecessary Windows programs and data first.
- Download the Slackware 10.2 "A", "AP" and "L" series files, which are the
base installation into the C: drive. They are 206 MB, but you can
delete the AP files having to do with CDROM and DVD reading and writing.
- Reboot to MSDOS.
- If you don't want Windows on your system,
delete the Windows directory.
- Put the Bare.i disk in and reboot. Follow the instructions,
feeding the system the Install.1 and Install.2 disks.
-
Login as root (no password required),
and type: "mkdir /base; mount /dev/hda1 /base"
in order to gain access to the installation files.
-
Run "setup" and tell it to load files from the premounted
directory /base. Note, the A, AP, L series
take up about 500 megs.
I managed to remove some junk packages and I finally
ended up with A, AP, L, Y, and most of D in just 500 megs.
I was able to compile the 2.6.9 kernel and still have 200 megs free.
X-Windows
XFree86 4.1
Untested.
Framebuffer
The VESA framebuffer driver refuses to load with a -6 error.
Audio
Rumored to work just fine.
PCMCIA
Works fine.
Performance
Processor
The Pentium 120 is not a super-fast processor, but it's fine
for many uses. Running the Dhrystone2 test that you can find at
http://www.anime.net/~goemon,
it gets a score of 6.6.
Memory Bandwidth
To ascertain memory performance,
I wrote a utility called "bandwidth".
You can see the results of testing
this laptop
here.
Hard drive
I tested the stock 1.3 GB drive with hdparm, with these results:
Buffer disk access: 2.45 MB/sec
Cached disk access: 40.19 MB/sec
This is very slow. For comparison, I tested
a modern 40 gig Fujitsu drive
installed in a 233 MHz Thinkpad, and it achieved rates of
79 MB/sec cached and 15 MB/sec buffered.
This difference or the difficulty of replacing the
LTE's drive may not be causes for gloom however,
since even if a modern drive could be installed in the LTE 5280,
that does not mean that the computer
could ever transfer or process data at the higher speeds
that a modern drive supports.
Documentation
Repair manual:
here.
Links
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