Dell Latitude LS Update

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Nicholas Andrade" <sdnick484@nospam.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:0RcCe.3741$_%4.614@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
> 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