Fw: wireless on an old Thinkpad 600
 

Bernard,
First, you are working with a system (Sarge) that is out-of-date. I would recommend loading Etch with a lightweight desktop like XFCE due to the TP600's limited resources. If I am not wrong, the TP600 (I used to have a 600e) has a max of 256MB RAM. It would not hurt to upgrade it. The main reason that I suggest Etch over Sarge is updated hardware support.


From your post, it looks like you are inquiring about both wired and wireless cards. I was using a 3Com 3C589D wired Ethernet card on my 600e, and it worked well under Linux.

For wireless, I've had my best luck under Linux with WiFi cards that use the Atheros chipset and Atheros Linux driver.

Here are a few links to Linux hardware compatibility sites
that might be of help.

http://www.linux-drivers.org/

http://www.linuxcompatible.org/compatibility.html

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/

http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/

I hope you find these useful. Currently, I am posting this from Ubuntu v.8.04 (Hardy Heron) on a Compaq Evo N600c using a generic "Ativa" 802.11g WiFi card that I picked up at my local Office Depot. I've previously used these cards (I have three) with success on my old IBM TP A21e under Etch, a Compaq Armada M700 running Etch, and on a Toshiba Satellite 2410 Series running both PCLOS "TinyMe" and Puppy Linux 4.1 Retro (2.6.21.7
Kernel).

--- On Tue, 10/28/08, Bernard <bdebreil@teaser.fr> wrote:
From: Bernard <bdebreil@teaser.fr>
Subject: wireless on an old Thinkpad 600
To: debian-laptop@lists.debian.org
Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2008, 6:44 PM

Hi to everyone !

I would like to install wireless facilities on my old Thinkpad. It has a
300 Mhz processor, 128 MB of RAM, and 4.1 GB of space on hard disk. It
used to run on RedHat 7.2, which stayed there for about six years without
any problem. Since I have been unable to get wireless working on it using
pcmcia IBM 'EtherJet' card and a router in client mode
'FON2200' (the so
called Fonera), I installed Debian Sarge instead of RedHat 7.

Fw: wireless on an old Thinkpad 600
 

Le Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:04:28 -0700, Robert Smith a écrit*:


> Bernard,First, you are working with a system (Sarge) that is
> out-of-date. I would recommend loading Etch with a lightweight desktop
> like XFCE due to the TP600's limited resources. If I am not wrong, the
> TP600 (I used to have a 600e) has a max of 256MB RAM. It would not hurt
> to upgrade it. The main reason that I suggest Etch over Sarge is updated
> hardware support.

I kwnow that Debian Sarge is outdated. Upon upgrading from RedHat 7.2 -
much older yet - I first installed 'etch'n a half', but I ran into
troubles as far as Xwindow was concerned. Browsing docs on the Internet
revealed that a number of users had numerous problems with 2.6 kernels on
old laptops. I then attempted to run Debian Sarge on my laptop. Sarge is
the system that runs my Desktop, with no problems. With Debian Sarge on my
laptop, I also had problems with XWindow, but I still could work on it,
while on Etch I could barely do anything : the fvwm screen did not even
allow an 'Xterm'.

Now that late trials and mishaps have made my Sarge out of practical use,
I have been willing to reinstall... which process seems to be, if not
impossible, at least more difficult ever since yesterday or so. Packages
are no longer available for install, except, maybe, at a new address which
I don't happen to know as of now. I have therefore re-re-installed Debian
Etch, even though it is not quite the same version as before : it is no
longer called 'etch and a half', but 'Etch40r5'. It happens to be the same
mess as far as X11 is concerned. My present day questions will therefore
concern X11 problems as a start.

This laptop used to run perfectly under 'fvwm' under Xfree86. I have never
liked or sought anything like 'Gnome' or 'Kde', which I found too slow,
buggy, useless and too much resembling Microsoft Windows desktops. fvwm
had my preference, and I found it wonderful for my purpose. I want no more
than that. As previously said, this laptop ran fvwm perfectly under RedHat
7.2. Same on RH7.3. On Debian Sarge, I had been able to run a very limited
fvwm, still Xterms were generated on demand, and I could do useful work
that way. On Debian Etch, on the basic fvwm Xorg screen, as previously
said I can't even get an Xterm !

What tests or other diagnosis would you advise me to run so as to be able
to debug my Xwindows problems ?

I have the xserver-xorg-neomagic installed and reckognized. Synaptics does
not reckognized my built-in mouse, but another generic software does
reckognize it... for anything else I simply don't know. My Xorg.0.log file
does not say anything that I can easily understand, but I could forward it
if necessary.

Once I can get a workable environment under Etch, I will get back to my
Ethernet/Wireless/Router installation problems.




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