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  • From: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [BL] BL2 with Compaq Armada 1573DM
  • Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 17:53:28 +0000 (UTC)

233MHz. Came with 32MB RAM and I added 32MB to the single slot.
EDO? Does not work with identical looking memory that works elsewhere.
In theory you can add 64MB SODIMM.

Seems to be better quality than the early pentium Presarios, and has 24-bit color (the 120MHz Armada had 8-bit color) which is needed by Opera post version 6.

Highly recommended for linux, except for the winmodem.
Not bad for Win98 but had to hunt up the Chips and Tech video driver (linux uses Xvesa) and it wanted a sound driver for the modem.

Must add nomce to boot line to avoid 'machine check error' with default kernel 2.2.26 (corrected in 2.2.27). So Steven's BL3 disks won't boot on here. David Moberg's syslinux 1-floppy USB BL also does not boot, don't know why. BL3 loop works perfectly with nomce added to boot line.

Video 2MB video RAM

Not framebuffer. Displays 800x600 24-bit, and up to 1280 on external monitor. Nice looking text that almost fills the screen.

svgalib works but only as plain VGA.
Xvesa works fine, 800x600 in Xsetup.
svga X also works but uses more memory

Sound

ESS 1868 (?) sound which acts like sb16. Use a kernel with sb sound compiled into it (bzimlsfu.431 - which also has framebuffer support) and then since it is ISA sound, you also need to insmod sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=5 (I don't recall if opl3 was also compiled in). Works with mplayer and timidity now. (Without insmodding sb it cannot find /dev/dsp).
Due to some bug, you cannot insert sb/sound as modules on laptops.

I may compile a non-framebuffer small laptop kernel with sound some day.

Very nice quality speakers with volume control. It is rare to find a laptop that works with BL and sound. Would make a good internet radio.

Usable (a bit slowly) with lynx, links2 (graphical in X, Steven's version), Opera 9.64, Seamonkey and Firefox (first add firelibs.tgz for glibc 2.3.6 which disables uclibc Abiword so get another version - see archives).

Single USB port works well. IR said to conflict with sound (IRQ 5). I don't know how to get into BIOS setup - sometimes Armadas need setup floppy disks.

Comes with both floppy and CD-ROM drives. The floppy can be removed to add a second battery. Did not test parport for plip.

Two pcmcia slots. Nice keyboard and screen. Small power cable and built in power supply - makes it heavier but anything this age has a dead battery anyway.

I set it up for a friend with a 1GB hard drive. Win98 came on it (I shrank it to 600MB) and he will use that for wordprocessing and some database program, and linux on the internet. BL2 with all sorts of useful programs takes up 300MB (including mplayer and timidity with patches, some large browsers, netpbm....). Has behaved okay without a swap partition, but I could delete the Win98 CAB files and shrink Windows to make space for one. This will do everything he said he wanted (using a USB external hard drive for file storage) except play DVDs. I will add a pcmcia ethernet card (it can even take cardbus) and maybe eventually an aironet wireless card (or get my cardbus kernel working with some cardbus card that needs glibc 2.3.6 to compile the driver).

Might work (very slowly) with DSL linux but probably not with firefox,
and too little memory for Puppy linux.



Sindi



  • [BL] BL2 with Compaq Armada 1573DM, baslinux, 05/05/2010

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