I want to set up a server at my office for "experimental" purposes, and while I've got a couple of older, unused computers, the best machine for the job--all things considered--would probably be my laptop. I'm wondering if there are any issues running either RedHat 7.x or FreeBSD on a laptop? It's a Dell PIII with 128 MB ram so I know I'm okay in those departments; the things that have me a little worried are the video and the fact that I have a PCMCIA NIC (by Linksys).

I know I can just try it out and see if it works, but before I go through the hassle of setting up a dual-boot system I thought I'd ask here and see if anyone has any advice/insight.

Speaking of dual-boot systems, what's my best bet there? PartitionMagic?

I run dual boot Win2k and RedHat 6.2 on my laptop (PIII-650, 192MB) with no problems. I have a generic Trident video chip, a LinkSys 10/100 PCMCIA NIC, and a Lucent 802.11b wireless card, all supported. Only thing that doesn't work is the internal WinModem (doesn't work in W2k either).

Personally I'd go with Linux, partly because I'm more familiar with it, but also partly because it seems to have better hardware support.

You probably don't need to run X at all (if by server you mean Apache etc), but mine runs X with KDE quite well at 1024x768.

I'd first get a list of all hardware (check the Device Manager), and do a few Google searches and see what you can find in the way of support. A lot of hardware that might not be supported "out of the box" can easily be added with a driver/kernel module.

As for Partition Magic -- definite "yes" on that one. Best software investment I've made in a while. You can create Linux partitions within Windows, resize/move many types of partition, etc.

RedHat CDs usually come with a free utility called "fips" that can repartition, but from (a very bad) personal experience I recommend staying away from that one, and investing in PM.

Hope this helps.

Three issues to consider here:
1. Some laptop BIOSes don't know how to boot off of non-M$ partitions. In particular IBM laptops were reported to have this problem, but IIRC there were others as well.
2. Laptops need power management; power management support is at best limited and at worst completely broken in most versions of linux and FreeBSD.
3. FreeBSD-4.4-RC has had some major problems with laptops recently. If you're going to use FreeBSD, stick to 4.3 + security patches (install 4.3-RELEASE, cvsup to RELENG_4_3).

Originally posted by Jm4n
RedHat CDs usually come with a free utility called "fips" that can repartition, but from (a very bad) personal experience I recommend staying away from that one, and investing in PM.


I am learning Linux ver 7.0 and using the book "Red Hat Linux in 24 hours" by Sams Publishers. I know about "fips" but forgive my ignorance, whate's a "PM" and where can I buy it(url)?

Thanks in advance

Originally posted by cactus


I am learning Linux ver 7.0 and using the book "Red Hat Linux in 24 hours" by Sams Publishers. I know about "fips" but forgive my ignorance, whate's a "PM" and where can I buy it(url)?

Thanks in advance

PM is short for PartitionMagic, used for resizing and creating/removing partitions in Windows. It's available on many online stores, surly buy.com has it, or you can order it directly from the manufactuer, PowerQuest, www.powerquest.com

Thanks :) WTFHosting for the info and the url.

Originally posted by Jm4n
I run dual boot Win2k and RedHat 6.2 on my laptop (PIII-650, 192MB) with no problems. I have a generic Trident video chip, a LinkSys 10/100 PCMCIA NIC, and a Lucent 802.11b wireless card, all supported. Only thing that doesn't work is the internal WinModem (doesn't work in W2k either).


Did you have to recompile your kernel to get you Lucent WaveLan card working? I have one that I've never managed to get working under Linux.

I second the recommendation of Partition Magic. It's just a handy tool to have around.

-joe

I don't think I had to recompile but I'm not sure... an updated kernel build is pretty much the first thing I do after installing Linux on any system.

I do know that I had to use the drivers (kernel module) for the WaveLAN -- the kernel doesn't come with the right ones for the Lucent card (note that they work with quite a few 802.11b cards, not just Lucent).

In theory, you should just be able to download the Lucent kernel modules and do a 'modprobe'. It's been so long, I don't remember where exactly I got the drivers, but a Google search (http://www.google.com/search?q=lucent+wavelan+802.11b+linux+kernel+module+drivers) turns up a few links that look promising:

Orielly has a good article on the subject here (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2001/03/06/recipe.html), and there's another page here (http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Linux.Wireless.drivers.html) that might be helpful.

Regarding power management, Linux doesn't do too badly. My laptop does console blanking (eg, turns off the screen/backlight after 5 minutes), and powers off properly etc. It also spins the drive down after 5 minutes of inactivity, same as Windows.

The only thing it doesn't do that Win2k does is hibernate -- one of Window's only good features. I can jump into Linux and back in a matter of seconds (Linux boots quickly enough on its own, especially compared with Win2k).

I haven't played much with FreeBSD's power management. I run one FreeBSD (4.3 stable) box at home, but it's on an old 233 with AT power etc -- not much support for power management on the hardware side...

All around, I prefer Linux as a desktop system over FreeBSD. On the server, Linux has many advantages, but FreeBSD is best for dedicated DNS or firewall machines IMO. Linux is best for a general purpose machine.

RedHat 7.1 has a special laptop install now so should work pretty well out of the box. I had the pleasure of trying to install Mandrake 6 on a laptop a while back - not something I'll ever try again.

While not having install 7.1 onto a laptop, I did put it on this desktop which is virtually nothing but USB and 3D card (Geforce II). Beside pulling out the winmodem and dancing a jig on it before installing a serial external modem, RedHat installed without skipping a beat and everything worked. The only real difference would be the PCMCIA and LCD screen, both of which are documented as supported now.

KDE2 is a fantastic desktop too btw

Greg Moore

Well I installed RedHat 7.1 on my laptop and it works perfectly. I used Partition Magic to create a 4 gig Linux partition, and the RH 7.1 installer automatically partitioned that the way it wanted without hurting my Windows partition. As Greg said, it's got a "laptop" option on the install, and you can select a default laptop install or choose a custom install and select the laptop compatibility option.

I even managed to get the one-domain demo version of Plesk up and running. I'll have to say, it's more impressive when you install and run it on your own system where you can really take a good look at things than it is just using the demo on Plesk.com. I really like Plesk a lot now that I've taken a close look at it. It ran perfectly too--well, up until the point where I tried to see if I could upgrade the FrontPage server extensions to the 2002 version, and it killed Plesk. Oh well, back to the virtual drawing board.