[NBLUG/talk] What/How to install on a Thinkpad 365X with no CDROM.

[Eric Eisenhart]

On Fri, Jun 03, 2005 at 10:56:09AM -0700, Mitch Patenaude wrote:
> I came across two mostly-functional IBM Thinkpad 365X (2625-2E9)
> laptops.  They're Pentium 133, 40MB with a 80MB hd.  I want to turn at
> least one of them into a car computer running linux with a basic
> GPSDrive install, maybe also 802.11{b,g}, Kismet, etc.
> 
> Here's the problem: neither one has a CDROM drive, but both have
> functional floppy drives.  They have 2 type I or 1 type II pcmcia, but
> not cardbus capable.  I've got a 802.11b card that is pcmcia, but my
> 10/100 base T card is only cardbus.  I'm trying to get a basic distro
> onto these boxes.
> 
> So, what distro can I put on these, and how do I get it on there? 
> 
> I've tried tomsrtbt, and it woks fine, but since it's based on the 2.2
> kernel, it has no support for wifi.  Is there a floppy based distro
> that has a 2.4 kernel and wlan support?  Does anybody know of a cheap
> pcmcia (not cardbus) 10/100 baseT card with good linux support?

Wow.  That's very much like my first laptop, except you've got way more RAM.

I'd suggest Debian.

http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-i386/current/images/floppy/

Put those images onto floppies.

Boot from "boot", follow instructions, install the root and network
drivers...  etc...  Theoretically you're supposed to end up with a system
with *just* enough to do networking and run apt-get to install more stuff. 
I'm not positive about *wireless* networking, though.

Also, we *might* have a PCMCIA ethernet card in the collection of
InstallFest materials.  We're aiming for an installfest in July.  I might
even have the ethernet card I used in my old 365X around somewhere still... 
I used an external CD drive (used a PCMCIA adapter) to get Linux onto that
box.  I might have that somewhere, too -- can't recall if I got rid of it
last time I moved or not.
-- 
Eric Eisenhart
NBLUG Co-Founder, Scribe and InstallFest Coordinator
The North Bay Linux Users Group -- http://nblug.org/
eric at nblug.org, IRC: Freiheit at fn AIM: falschfreiheit