Linux for CF-M33 Pent-MMX 233 MHz?

[ADOR]

I see max ram for it is 160mb. Here is a 128 mb stick of ram that is suppose to fit it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/128MB-MEMORY-4- ... 0351470895

http://toughbook.wikispaces.com/CF-M32M33

[Springfield]

I see max ram for it is 160mb. Here is a 128 mb stick of ram that is suppose to fit it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/128MB-MEMORY-4- ... 0351470895

http://toughbook.wikispaces.com/CF-M32M33

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.

[UNCNDL1]

Tackling the box of goodies Springfield sent up north. I'll keep you posted.
Reading up on just what we're dealing with here: http://toughbook.wikispaces.com/CF-M32M33
Any more thoughts greatly appreciated. Cheers

[kode-niner]

Sounds like an interesting challenge.

[UNCNDL1]

Yes, the first challenge being obtaining some floppy disks. I just drove over to Staples, thinking I could just buy a ten pack...NOT. I'll have to go online and order some. In the meantime, after reading all the posts again on this thread, I'm taking a two pronged approach. I found some mini-Ubuntu iso's that are 12-30 MB in size, and allow a cd install with hard wired network for the other things needed after the basic install:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Insta ... _.28x86.29
I'll try this if the BasicLinux floppy approach does not work, or works but is not satisfactory:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/baslinux/
Once I have the floppies, I'm hoping to dive right in. Thanks again Springfield!

[ADOR]

If you need a Panasonic USB floppy I still have a few left. Just let me know.

[UNCNDL1]

Thanks Ador, I think Springfield included one in the goodie box. I did not even open it yet as there are toughbooks everywhere, and the floppies don't come until tomorrow from Amazon. I did download the programs for the floppy install, and am hoping its not a big deal to put the raw image onto them. I might have to learn DOS all over to format and install.
More to follow.

[ADOR]

. I might have to learn DOS all over to format and install.
More to follow.

I am going to drop DOS with a GUI on one of the older projects I have going on. Need to look up a text based browser for it as well.

[UNCNDL1]

Project update: The floppies did NOT come in as planned yesterday, hoping for today's delivery. I gave in and opened up Ken's box of goodies anyway. The M33's are both W5M's, and system memory is 640 kb, extended memory is 31 MB. The hard drive is 3.9 GB, 3.34 GB free on the Win95 unit (using only 575 MB). I'm amazed at that!
I'll have to search the how-to's and see if I can get inside to upgrade the ram. I bought two 128 MB memory sticks on Ador's suggestion. Unit #1 boots to Plop Menu and Unit #2 boots up Win95. Cute little toughbooks. I booted up the one with Plop, hoping to install a minimal Ubuntu distro (12.5MB), and then use the LAN to upgrade the system with home network. Unfortunately, I could NOT fool the system to boot from the Panasonic CF-VDRRT3. (more reading on plop needed).
I could NOT get the Panasonic KXC RW10A CD-R/RW with PCMIA card adaptor to work either.
So update: Floppies arrived. Creating the two disks is easy for disk2, and harder for disk1.image, as it must be raw. You can drag and drop the disk 2 contents into a formatted floppy, however disk 1 takes some work. I tried all kinds of code in Linux and then found this website: http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Har ... rite.shtml
The program loaded on my back up drive CF-30 with Windows7, and I created the boot raw image disk for BasLinux3. She boots up and then loads, prompting you to exchange disk 1 for disk 2 and hit enter. The little Linux system loads and then....it's in terminal mode, and I'll need to read up on commands, etc. There is a stand alone GUI, that can be executed and requires 8mb RAM. I'm beat, and ready to call it an evening for now. Hopeful to find out how to increase the RAM, and go from there. Good news is that the CF-VDRRT3 worked on my idle M34, and I installed CrunchBang version #20130506 Waldorf 32 bit, and she works great!
That's all for now, gotta catch up on how to upgrade the memory in the M33's

[ADOR]

http://gcn.com/articles/1999/08/25/ligh ... pport.aspx

Digging for links and maybe a manual............

https://panasonic.ca/PCS/OperatingInstr ... M33_oi.pdf

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... en&ct=clnk

http://web.archive.org/web/200704091237 ... /cfm32.htm

The above link has some overclocking of the M32 in it.

http://web.archive.org/web/200704071911 ... 32/irq.htm