Dell Latitude LS Update

Well as I mentioed in a thread about a week ago, I wanted ot pick up a
cheap ultralight (laptop 3lbs.) for just word processing, web surfing,
and throwing in my backpack and not worrying about it getting stolen. I
ended up going wit Dell Lat. LS, and so far I am very impressed with the
machine. It's just a P-III 400MHz, 256MB RAM, and I threw on a 20GB HDD
(came with a 6GB one), but it runs Linux quite well.

I first installed Fedora Core 4, and almost everything seemed to work.
I had to add a couple lines to my xorg.conf to allow xvid playback, but
besides that it works great. The install of Linux was a little tricky;
I had to use a second laptop (my D610) since the LS has no CD-ROM and is
not USB bootable. I swapped the HDD into my D610, installed Fedora,
updated all my software via yum, and recompiled my kernel for the LS (so
I don't know if a vanilla kernel works, but I'd presume it does). If
you don't have a spare laptop for the install, an external CD-ROM ought
to work, or use a laptop HDD enclosure and install Linux with another
machine.

I am running into some bug that locks the system up sometimes when I
boot (a hard reset usually fixes it), so I think I might move back to
Fedora Core 2 (I believe udev is the problem). Besides that, I'd highly
recommend this machine for someone who just wants a cheap (I got mine
for under $150 after shipping on eBay), good notebook for notes, light
browising, etc. It truely demonstrates how little basic office
functions actually need a 3GHz machine for most purposes.

"Nicholas Andrade" wrote in message
...
Well as I mentioed in a thread about a week ago, I wanted ot pick up a
cheap ultralight (laptop 3lbs.) for just word processing, web surfing,
and throwing in my backpack and not worrying about it getting stolen. I
ended up going wit Dell Lat. LS, and so far I am very impressed with the
machine. It's just a P-III 400MHz, 256MB RAM, and I threw on a 20GB HDD
(came with a 6GB one), but it runs Linux quite well.

I first installed Fedora Core 4, and almost everything seemed to work. I
had to add a couple lines to my xorg.conf to allow xvid playback, but
besides that it works great. The install of Linux was a little tricky; I
had to use a second laptop (my D610) since the LS has no CD-ROM and is not
USB bootable. I swapped the HDD into my D610, installed Fedora, updated
all my software via yum, and recompiled my kernel for the LS (so I don't
know if a vanilla kernel works, but I'd presume it does). If you don't
have a spare laptop for the install, an external CD-ROM ought to work, or
use a laptop HDD enclosure and install Linux with another machine.

I am running into some bug that locks the system up sometimes when I boot
(a hard reset usually fixes it), so I think I might move back to Fedora
Core 2 (I believe udev is the problem). Besides that, I'd highly
recommend this machine for someone who just wants a cheap (I got mine for
under $150 after shipping on eBay), good notebook for notes, light
browising, etc. It truely demonstrates how little basic office functions
actually need a 3GHz machine for most purposes.

All good news!. If I recall, there is a connector on the back for an
external CD or Floppy. I believe it shares the drive with most other
Latitudes, so they're cheap on ebay. Glad you like it!

Tom