scored a cf-18 mk2 - hmm win xp or linux? 8-)

CF-18DHB22KA from an aussie seller in Melbourne. Paying for it today or tomorrow so should be here end of week. Going to use it in place of the CF28 for my 'travel' computer since it'll be a lot easier to pack and transport when I do long freight train runs (doing another one to Darwin and back starting tomorrow night).

I might leave windows on the 18 but upgrade the disk (has a 40 gb). Do the 18's take normal ATA disks or SATA? Sata is a lot more prevalent now but I do like those Samsung spinpoints and am going to order a 160 gb one for my cf28 so could get another for the cf18.

The 18 has a touchscreen which is a good start. Xp tablet edition installed. Doesn't have the right stylus but I'm sure they're not hard to procure.

Tempted to go Gentoo Linux on it but I don't know if any flavours of Linux have good support for the toughbook-specific hardware devices. Anyone care to comment on this with particular ref to the Cf18's? I'm also bidding on a cf19 (in the US) which I might win but that's not a key issue at present.

Craig.

 

The hard drive is IDE or ATA drives... I'd go for the 160GB drives that are hot...


Why not dual boot? That's what I'm going to do on my next CF-18....

 

I use ubuntu on one of mine but I cant seem to get the touch screen to work, never tried a digitizer

 

I guess I don't have much of a need for the touchscreen functionality but it could be handy to have. I prefer Gentoo linux though that's a 'religious' war all of it's own and distinctly different from the Windoze vs *nix one.

 

I,VE just got my mk2 a week ago fitted a 250 and dual boot xp and windows 7.7057 with all drivers working .

 

daneman how does 7 work on the 18? I've been thinking about dumping it on to try for a week now but havn't had the time

 

it works great only hotkeys don,t work and it,s not far off xp speed but looks better.

 

I can live without hotkeys, and yes 7 does look much better I run it as the primary os on a few machines here, hmmm alright where did I hide that dvd drive !

 

there.s a new semi rc-1 out ver 5057

 

got it sitting at home, going to try tonight or tomorrow

 

I presume this '7' is a new Windows version I see talk about in a few places (not just here)? Is this meant to be a replacement for Vista, a 'slimmed down' version of Vista, or a replacement for Xp, or something else?

If I can get my wireless 3G modem to function properly under Linux then that's my preference when I put a new disk in the Mk2 CF-18. If not, I'll stay with the Megasloth products.

Does 'Windows 7' correctly support all of the hardware devices on a CF18 (and for that matter, also on a CF19)? Do any versions of Linux?

Craig.

 

don,t know about cf-19 but cf 18 all works fine it will be faster than xp.
and it is microsofts new operating system due out at end of year.
they put out a beta for the public to try.

 

Found some good stuff about Win 7 on wikipedia so read up on it. Hard to believe Xp has been around since about 2001, and Vista has been around since 2006/7 yet it gets so lambasted everywhere due to it's faults. Personally I dont like Vista (tried it on a few acer laptops) so glad I have XP on this CF-28 but might give Win 7 a go on the CF-18. Leads more to making a dual-boot system with a nice Linux and a decent Windoze.

Still not really sure my Q about whether all the tb-specific hardware (on the 18's and 19's) is properly supported under current open-source Linux flavours can be sufficiently answered without actually trying it out!

Craig.

 

I will be trying windows 7 on my 18 this week, and if all im out is the buttons I will be happy

With linux I wouold like to get the touchscreen working but have olny tried knoppix and ubuntu

 

Well my attempts at running w7 on my older Toughbooks was similar
The hotkeys were not working which meant that I have to live with full screen brightness which was not acceptable for me


Alex

 

ok full brightness would be a pain in the A, I wonder if I can write a color profile to dim it down somehow for the old intel IGA setup

 

Well if you're looking for speed I posted a benchmark test here somewhere which showed XP way faster than either Vista or Win. 7. No surprise there, it would be surprising if the opposite were true.
CAP

 

the new win 7 ver 5057 is faster than xp and vista ,it is near the finished system that vista should have been,the only system in the test was it,s own 64 bit ver 7048 that was close to it. just for info. and you can alter the brightness in the
graphics card software.

 

Well, I'm not ready to punish myself with Vista yet. When the Panasonic configurator is listing W-7 "downgraded" to Vista, I'll look into Vista. The CF-18s are tough enough to get working just right for me to try with no driver support.
CAP

 

Well, my results with the standard Intel ipw2100 onboard wifi card in my Mk1 CF-18, is that the wifi has been OK out of the box with Knoppix, Ubuntu, Xubuntu and DSL (isn't installing and playing with different OS's "fun"??). Wifi does seem to be a bit "iffy" coming back from Suspend, but there's a simple script you can insert to make it automatically reload itself, then it's 100%. WRT other hardware, and Linux functioning well with it, I am currently running Xubuntu 8.04, and that works fine for everything except touchscreen, and Hotkeys out of the box.....I actually have Hotkeys working now, but it involves 5 mins work installing an extra driver. I have played with the recommended method of enabling Touchscreen function, but haven't been successful yet though others have, again, it's a driver issue.
Suspend, Resume, Hibernate etc are fine. What's incredible is how much stuff is just plug and play with Linux, stuff you have to install drivers for under XP: digital cameras, my nokia n810, wireless mouse, even a 2xUSB_to_PCMCIA adapter I have, all just pnp

 

Will the restore CD's install Win Xp pro or Xp tablet edition if I was to install the OS fresh onto the new HDD I've purchased to install in the CF-18? At present it has Xp tablet edition which I don't have too much of a problem with, but some people seem to believe that Xp pro is a better option.

The other approach is to perhaps 'upgrade' the existing Windows installation to standard Xp pro, but is that even possible without a lot of fiddling?

Craig.

 

Craig

The proper restore disks for your touchscreen model are windows xp pro

Problems do come up when incorrect operating system loads are installed

One example is the tablet o/s load on those Australian cf-18’s

I had a cf-28 last week brought to me by a customer with the touchscreen not working
When I went into Control Panel and system, on my way to look into the device manager for issues the system was reported as a Cf-51!

I guess one of the IT techs cloned one of their cf-51 load’s into the cf-28

The Toughbooks run good and stable with the correct o/s and drivers

Alex