Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : IBM 486 Thinkpad + Dockstation


beemer5770
07-10-2003, 11:09 PM
Ok - I follwed a couple threads here and some links and really didn't see anything that helped me.

Here's what I have:

An IBM 25mhz 486 Laptop Type 9545-308 (TP750C)

The battery does not work, and I have no ac adapter for the laptop itself, so...it must run using:

An IBM TP Dockstation Type 3545-001 w/SCSI CD-ROM internal to the dock station.

I have a couple 1.4g HD's for it and it runs Win 95 osr2 w/o a hitch - tho, granted, it's definately not a speed demon.

I have also been using a Netgear PCMCIA 10/100 Lan card (Model FA411).

Here's what I've been able to do:

Win 95 osr2 - Runs fine - has a bit of sound via the MWAVE IBM Sound Chip, tho I'm not really worried about getting more than system beeps out of it.

RedHat, Mandrake (486 version), BSD, and one other I can't remember - No luck - I simply could not find a boot disk (or maybe didn't look in the right place) that would boot up and recognize the dock station's cd-rom to install.

DragonLinux I *was* able to install. I got the NIC working over my DSL line (i.e. accepted DHCP, connected, etc) and managed to get KDE to run after configuring the video for the Xserver. However, it runs in a virtual file system and I found the KDE performance to be lacking compared to Win95 (which can't be a good thing). I *think* this was due to running it in file virtually as opposed to running it natively on the HD itself, but it could have been Dragon's version of KDE was too advanced for the 486.

What I want to do:

Find a boot disk that will:

Let me install from the SCSI CD

OR

Bring up enough Linux on the box so that I can get an IP from my router (via DHCP) and then continue installation via FTP.

The second option I tried before I tried DragonLinux but I couldn't seem to find what to include on a disk to boot up a bare Linux like that.

I know there are small Linux's that will run from a floppy but I don't remember seeing one that would start up with DHCP and/or have the SCSI drivers I need (if they exist at all). Also, there is a special boot command when using the floppy on the Thinkpad but I've got that down. :)

Thanks in advance.

ZAmodeo
07-10-2003, 11:17 PM
Is 25 Mhz a typo? I didn't think 486es would be that slow.

beemer5770
07-10-2003, 11:21 PM
Nope - not a typo - 486's actually started out at 20mhz I believe (it's been a long time since I thought about it) and 386's ended at 20mhz.

mdwatts
07-11-2003, 08:14 AM
I cannot recall ever seeing anyone ask about installing Linux from a docking station cdrom.

See if you can find anything to help in these G4L search results for 'docking' (http://www.google.com/linux?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=docking&btnG=Google+Search). I did notice a couple on the first page that look promising.

jjust
07-11-2006, 07:09 AM
I saw this post because I am looking for that unit. Do you still have it and are you willing to part with it ?

JamminJoeyB
07-11-2006, 09:22 AM
Do you realize you just added a post to a thread 3 years to the day from when it was started?

Have you looked on ebay? They seem to have everything on there.