Linux on the CF-25 (2002), by Demetrio Aspiras

The following is my account of how to do it. I used Hempel's CF-35 page for starters.

As a warning, this is lite on Linux specifics...and is mainly to point out specific things you need to do to get the CF-25 working. I assume you know how to install Linux using your favorite distro.

About the CF-25


The CF-25 is old, circa 1997. I just started college this year and wanted a laptop but lacked funds. I looked into used retailers but it was round 400+...so I went to the giant internet garage sale known as Ebay. I started tracking which laptops were cheapest/had the most parts available and such. Then I ran across this puppy and fell in love. Magnesium alloy case, waterresistant keyboard, shockproof/dustproof components. All military-spec. Mmm, mmm. Bought one for 150$ with the following options:

P150, 2GIG HD, 48MB RAM, 12.1"TFT Screen, Floppydrive

There are some with smaller 10 inch screens and some with p166s and some with less ram. Also, you may find one with a cdrom drive. The drives go for 60-110$ on ebay right now. As we know, Linux makes old hardware useful and this is no expection. 800X600@24 with gnome is nice. Perfect for taking notes/coding, etc.

Setting up the Disk


In haste I tried the CF-35 howto and couldnt get Hibernation working so I just installed Slack and ran with it. Now, two weeks later I went back at it and got Hibernation working. I took a peek in the rest.exe file and saw what was done and made two batch files for it. Basically do this:
  1. D/L the FirstAid disk from Panasonic.com. Throw those files on a bootable windows disk plus these: hiber.bat , hiber2.bat
  2. Run FDISK, delete all partitions. Then create a big primary allocating all the diskspace. Reboot.
  3. Run hiber.bat, reboot.
  4. Run hiber2.bat, reboot.
If all went well you should see something like: Hibernation file found, hibernation enabled.
You can test it by booting into something and holding the power button until the saving memory to disk screen appears. Wa-la!


Installing Slack


I used Slackware 7.1 on CD(retail!) via an external parallel port HP Cdwriter 7200e. You can use whatever bootdisk you need, I had to use the parallel one of course. No matter what bootdisk or what distro you install, I'm pretty sure you will always need to do a text-based install. So, for slack grab the text rootdisk.

No matter what distro you use fire up your favorite partition program, I prefer cfdisk. Go ahead and delete the primary DOS part, but LEAVE THE OS2. That is your hibernation part. Add however many new partitions you want, I just use one for linux and one for swap. I know some people like to map /usr and such though. :)

Install your linux! I told you it was lite on linux install info ;)




Configuring Linux


Or, more importantly XF86. The CF-25 uses the Chips&Tech chipset. Slack 7.1 installs 3.3.6 but includes 4.0. I use 4.0. For 3.3.6 you use the svga server, setup the device section to use only 800x600@whatever colordepths you want. 24bpp works fine for me. For 4.0 use the chips driver. Again, I assume you know how to configure X. If not there are plenty of HOWTOs out there.

You should recompile the kernel with APM support so you can see your battery life and such. :)


Sound


I do not have sound yet, the CF-25 just has a headphone jack and the proc isnt really fast enough for mp3s really. I heard it uses the soundblaster module though, cause it's an ess chip.


I'm sorry if this is so lite. The most important thing is the hibernation. That's all I wanted to document. Everything else should be fairly easy if you have installed Linux before. But feel free to email me any Q's.


NOdemetrio.aspirasiiiSPAM@maine.edu