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  From: Alan Kennington <akenning@topology.org>
  To  : LinuxSA <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 15:36:38 +0930

Toshiba slimline laptop CD-reader choice

This is a query to anyone who may have got 
linux going nicely on a Toshiba Portégé 3020CT laptop
or similar machine.

My difficulty is that I don't seem to be able to
get my SuSE 7.0 linux onto the machine (to replace
that awful wind98 rubbish).

This laptop (which I bought second-hand for $1500
yesterday) has these sorts of things:

-	2 type II PCM-CIA slots
-	external floppy drive
-	USB port
-	parallel port (on I/O extension unit)

But there's no CD reader at all.
I thought this would be simple anyway, by using
the ethernet card.
However, when I try to install over FTP (which I
have done before), it says that 32 MB RAM is not
enough (it needs 80 MB RAM to install over FTP,
although I can't think why), and when I try to
install over NFS, it says that it can't find my ethernet
card. In fact, the ready-built modules on the 
modules-disk with the OS does not support the kind
of ethernet card that I'm using (D-Link DE-660).

So basically I'm stuck right now.

The options for getting a CD reader seem to be these:

-	printer-port CD reader, $150
-	USB CD reader
-	PCMCIA CD reader, $290.

I'm not even sure that the "modules" disk is going
to support any of these even if I buy them.

Given that I don't want to buy stuff that won't be of any
use, can anyone with a similar machine tell me how
they would proceed from here?
Ultimately, I do want to have an ethernet card and
CD reader for the thing, but right now, I just want to
get linux onto this thing as soon as possible.

Someone suggested I should take out the disk drive and
install linux onto it using my other laptop
(a Toshiba Satellite Pro 480 CDT), but I'm worried that
the OS installation might not be correct
for the other machine. 

Any helpful clues most welcome.

Cheers,
Alan Kennington.

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