Baslinux mailing list

["Samual Acorn" <sam.acorn AT gmail.com>]

On 14/12/06, sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Dec 2006, Samual Acorn wrote:
>
> > it sounds counter productive but the best way to do that would be to
> > use one of those tiny cheap 12 inverters for cars... most of them will
> > tell you when the car (or other 12v battery) is low* and you wont have
> > to find a way to bump the voltage up (or down) to the laptops odd
> > voltages since youll be able to use the 'wall wart' that goes with the
> > laptop...
>
> That presumes you have a working car battery.  We have some small 12V
> battery for running a cordless Dremel tool or something.

that would work.. as long as it has enough amps to run the 30watt
inverter you'll need

> > *using an external battery source directly with a laptop will make the
> > laptop think its plugged into the wall and think it has an 'infinite'
> > source of power... it wont be able to tell when the batteries get low
> > which is definitly a bad thing...
>
> Why?  Linux seems to survive crashes.

well.... this wouldnt exactly be a 'normal' crash... this would be a
slow meltdown... a creep-in of memory corruption (and most likely
harddrive corruption)... and other really weird stuff (flickering
backlight on HDD access... floppy drive that cant seek when everything
else seems to work fine.. etc)... trust me on that one... ive seen
it... the bad part is the harddrive will be the first to go due to it
being the biggest power sucker in a laptop and it wouldnt be noticed
right away... not to say linux wouldnt survive but some of your data
might not...


> > using solar charging is up to you but you wont be able to run a laptop
> > directly off of a solar cell (unless you plan on spending alot of
> > cash) and charging will be very slow going (again unless you plan to
> > spend $$$$)
>
> With a small battery it would let you run a small computer while on a
> bike trip if you wanted the extra weight (which I don't).  Maybe you could
> hook up a laptop computer to an electric bike battery that can be
> recharged by pedaling?  Can you run linux on a newer PDA?

there is a linux for pocket PCs... but usually windows CE works fine
and is better for those devices... considering a lot of new ones have
wifi and bluetooth (driver reasons)...


bike batteries/headlight generators are usually 6volts and around 5
watts at the absolute most... not possible to run a laptop off of
this... thats not to say you couldnt get a 13.8 volt generator (13.8
needed to charge the 12v battery) but unless you feel like you can
race in the tour de france i doubt it would be practical...

> > unfortunatly, to be totally honest, the best way to run a laptop with
> > a dead battery -is- the extension cord approach... (ive tried running
> > my 'tops off of various sources but i cant get farther from the 'wall'
> > than the network cable {or null modem cable depending on the
> > machine-in-questions age} will let me so ive never made serious use of
> > any of the experements)
>
> wireless?

wireless RS232 (for the really old 'tops) is inpractical since those
devices are geared tword industrial use (the specs are nice... the
price tag is not) and reqire external power...

as far as WiFi goes i never bothered with it since i dont have a
laptop with a good battery and i honestly dont really trust it (look
up a program called "AirSnort" to see what i mean)

i have used someone elses wifi/laptop before (the laptop was brand
new) but even then the 'wireless' was lost because i had to hunt down
a power outlet to recharge the thing roughly every 1 to 2hrs ... (wifi
-eats- batteries)... 1 to 2 hrs seems like a lot of time but when
surfing the web/playing games time goes pretty fast..

> Sindi
--
--
--sam
--
Web; http://mephitus.no-ip.org/
Skype; Mephitus
ICQ; 51687964
--
"When you've done something right, no one will be sure you've done
anything at all." -- Futurama
--