With the new 1.30 BIOS for the M200, you can fin

wmadan · 04-05-2004, 06:56 AM

With the new 1.30 BIOS for the M200, you can finally boot from larger SD cards. So, since I like Linux, I was able to copy a Mepis Linux CD to a FAT 32 partition on my HDD, create a bootfloppy on the SD and boot Mepis up. Up to this point there was no way to boot up a Live CD version of Linux (Knoppix, Lindows, PCLinuxOS, Morphix, etc.) because these won't boot up from a USB CD drive.

What is great about this is that when you power down, no trace of Linux remains on your M200 (except for what's on the partition). So there's no way to mess up your Windows install. This should appease those who don't want to risk a dual boot set up.

A couple of caveats -- (1) the pen does not work, so you're left with a laptop essentially; and (2) there's no wireless support yet.

To get started, you have to load the new BIOS and download/install the two SD utilities for the M200.

I also discovered that you can install other programs on the SD card along with the boot image and it will still work (both to boot Linux and to use in my Pocket PC).

nino · 04-05-2004, 07:20 AM

can you write on the sd-card from within linux?

wmadan · 04-05-2004, 09:05 AM

Good question -- and I'll check to see if Mepis mounts the SD drive. The live distros are adding this capability. I know Mandrake's does.

Noger · 04-05-2004, 11:02 PM

Good news that the SD boot still works with other files on the card. Was a bit worried that my 512 Mb card would be going to waste if I set it to be bootable. Will give it a go [thumbsup]

Wcrocker · 04-05-2004, 11:13 PM

Noger,

What are using as a boot image?

wmadan · 04-06-2004, 02:43 PM

Nino,

I checked and the SD card is not mounted right out of the box, but with a little work I'm sure you could mount it and write files to it within Linux.

Wcrocker, from within the Toshiba SD boot utility you download from the Toshiba Web site, it asks you for an img file. On the Mepis CD there was a file named boot.img. I selected that and it wrote the file to the SD. Then you go into BIOS and set the boot order to boot from the FD first, and you're good to go.

jberger · 04-07-2004, 02:06 AM

Anyone tried SuSE on the M200?

I've been waiting on IBM to introduce a tablet, as I know they are comitted to SuSE, but I'm tired of waiting.

The M200 looks like the convertable tablet to beat right now, but I'm hesitant to buy without seeing it run SuSE first.
The dual boot aspect using the SD card is perfect, as I'll need to run both Windows/OneNote and SuSE for demos.

Any thoughts or experiances appreciated.
jayson

WNewquay · 04-07-2004, 06:34 AM

jberger,

Have you looked at MS Virtual PC?

I have RH9 running in a Virtual Machine on a desktop machine hosted by Win Server 2003.

Also have Win Server 2003 running in a Virtual Machine on my Tablet.

Haven't tried a *nix on the Tablet though.

Don't see why it wouldn't work. Just haven't tried it.

quote:Originally posted by jberger

Anyone tried SuSE on the M200?

I've been waiting on IBM to introduce a tablet, as I know they are comitted to SuSE, but I'm tired of waiting.

The M200 looks like the convertable tablet to beat right now, but I'm hesitant to buy without seeing it run SuSE first.
The dual boot aspect using the SD card is perfect, as I'll need to run both Windows/OneNote and SuSE for demos.

Any thoughts or experiances appreciated.
jayson

wmadan · 04-07-2004, 06:48 AM

I haven't ever tried SUSE, but on my M200 and previous TC1000 I had Red Hat, Mandrake, Lindows and Mepis installed at one time or another, all under dual boot configurations.

I imagine the SUSE live CD will behave like Mepis did for me, but I will caution you: I couldn't get Knoppix or Morphix to work.

davidm · 04-07-2004, 06:55 AM

I'm glad to see so many Linux people using the M200. I haven't committed to the m200 yet but would want to run both Linux and Windows on it - Linux for the server/dev environment, and also to try out Tablet PC features, which could be innovative.

I'll probably installed Debian, since it's my favourite distro for servers, though it's not the best desktop setup out of the box.

wmadan - why can't you use the pen? I notice on other sites the pen seems to work.

WNewquay - there is something strangely perverse about using MS Virtual PC to run Linux under Windows. :> I was considering VMWare. Do you know how they compare? I'd want snappy performance in general, but would expect to have to boot directly into Linux for accellerated graphics.