Homemade Laptop

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:02 am

Prebuilt IDE to CF adapters are only about ten bucks. No reason to make your own (in this case).

You could use a Microdrive- a hard drive in the Compact Flash format. This way you needn't worry about write cycles, and you still use less power than a laptop drive. 5Gigs for 30 bucks

Post by **bicostp** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:55 am

ZN13 wrote:On the subject of CF cards, does anyone know how to install DSL onto a CF card.

Once you wire it to IDE it's no different than a regular hard drive.

And is the C compiler still included?

No, I don't think it's in the OS, you probably have to get it off MyDSL. You should run DSL-N; it includes more libraries and software so it's more useful. For normal desktop use you might get more use out of Slax. (Run Popcorn Edition if size and CPU are issues.)

ZN13 · Post by **ZN13** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:52 am

Ok, I can use the standard SLAX edition. So do I just put the .ISO on my CF card and boot from that? I'll probably order parts first thing next month.

Post by **bicostp** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:23 am

You can probably do that but that's not the way to do it if you want a real desktop experience.

Real installation instructions are on the Slax website:
http://www.slax.org/doc_install_slax.php

ZN13 · Post by **ZN13** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:42 am

So I just use the SLAX boot CD and make_disk command? I just change the drive location to my CF card(I have a USB reader) and execute the make_disk command, right?

Post by **Sparkfist** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:16 pm

I would suggest if you are going to go with the whole flash hard drive idea, go with a duel setup. I mean get a CF that is about 128-512MB and install your OS on that and set the whole card and partition to read-only, the other you can use for your data. Ebay does have some duel CF IDE adapters, so you don't have to buy two adapters.

And if you're going to use this hard drive a lot, or do a lot of writing to it, get a hard drive. I say that as the earlier comment that you'll burn the flash ram out in a few months. So either buy a laptop hard drive or if you have the money to invest buy a micro drive. The latter option gives you a hard drive that is fairly rugged (don't go throwing against a wall though) and is the same size as a CF card.

ZN13 · Post by **ZN13** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:06 pm

Sparkfist wrote:I would suggest if you are going to go with the whole flash hard drive idea, go with a duel setup. I mean get a CF that is about 128-512MB and install your OS on that and set the whole card and partition to read-only, the other you can use for your data. Ebay does have some duel CF IDE adapters, so you don't have to buy two adapters.

And if you're going to use this hard drive a lot, or do a lot of writing to it, get a hard drive. I say that as the earlier comment that you'll burn the flash ram out in a few months. So either buy a laptop hard drive or if you have the money to invest buy a micro drive. The latter option gives you a hard drive that is fairly rugged (don't go throwing against a wall though) and is the same size as a CF card.

What if I used one CF card for booting, and then used different USB drives to save the actual files to. for instance, I would boot slax and then save a program I wrote to a flash drive, or save a document i wrote to a different flash drive(in order to distribute the cycles),what do you think?

soundwave · Post by **soundwave** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:09 pm

I'd just get a laptop drive..being still with little/no storage space sucks hardcore.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:28 pm

soundwave wrote:I'd just get a laptop drive..being still with little/no storage space sucks hardcore.

Soundwave is back!! Here to stay?

So before you get thinking about what you'll use for a drive, what will this laptop be used for? If its made out of desktop parts, its not likely to be as durable as a normal laptop. So if its always used and handled with care, a laptop drive should be fine.

soundwave · Post by **soundwave** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:31 pm

I float between these boards, Adult Swim's* and4chan**
Depends what mood I'm in.

*minors need not enter
**minors really need not enter

ZN13 · Post by **ZN13** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:34 pm

I'll mostly use it for programming, on the couch!!! Yipee!!!

Back on subject...a laptop drive would be ok, if I handled with extreme care...but what about power? And on a side note, should I just get my lazy butt up(I'm not really that lazy, I get up sometimes...) and get a job, allowing me to buy a Mini ITX (or dare I say Pico ITX) board?

soundwave · Post by **soundwave** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:37 pm

Avoid getting a [minimum wage paying] job at all costs.

You'll probably have to go with miniITX if you want to battery power it, I can't image standard sized ATX boards and processors being all that power efficient.

ZN13 · Post by **ZN13** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:39 pm

Well I guess the hunt begins for a job, for a 15-year-old. Tomorrow. Maybe.

So if I did go with the uber expensive Mini ITX boards, any suggestions?

soundwave · Post by **soundwave** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:42 pm

I know nothing more about them than that simple fact that they're small.

ZN13 · Post by **ZN13** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:49 pm

Well I'll do some research on them and let you know of my choice. If anyone cares, I'll share what I learn.