The Linux Extremist

In the English speaking world, we’re used to the phrase “cheap and cheerful”.  We’re possessed by the notion that something that doesn’t cost much can be of good value; this drives the idea behind Wal Mart, ASDA and a number of other enterprises.

When my girlfriend’s old Dell blew up, she thought she would get a cheap and cheerful laptop to tide her over.  The German company Medion is a specialist in providing cheap computer hardware; so far as I know, they’re the only PC manufacturer cheap enough for Woolworth’s.  She bought their rock bottom model, the Medion / Microstar MIM2080.  And as soon as she could, she got herself a decent computer.

To say this laptop is a bad idea is to understate matters.  The spec is as follows:

1.5 Celeron M

VIA Graphics Card - 800 x 600 pixel display

256 MB of RAM

40 GB hard drive

The unit has no built in wireless networking and no PCMCIA slot.  Furthermore, the CD ROM drive is external and attached to the laptop by two USB cables.

I first tried Ubuntu; it crashed out due to being unable to work with the external CD ROM drive.  I then tried Fedora Core; I got into the start of the installation process, which was better, but then it “lost” the CD ROM drive; fortunately, the installer had an option for a network install.  In my case, I had to plug the laptop into my internet router and point it via HTTP to the following server -

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/5/i386/os/Fedora/base/

The distro requires the file “stage2.img” in order to function.  However, once found, the installer then functioned on its own to completion.

Upon rebooting, Fedora Core 5 functioned well.  The limitations on the screen size and the lack of wireless are not the fault of the OS.  It booted reasonably quickly, and with an ethernet cable plugged in, Firefox was reasonably fast.  However Linux cannot cover the deficiencies of the machine.  The only way to go wireless with this laptop will be to purchase a USB dongle; in this case it may not be worth it.  The USB CD ROM does not appear to function with Fedora.  Overall, this laptop is plenty of cheap and not cheerful; fortunately, it does not appear that it is being made any longer.  It definitely will sit in reserve now that it is functional, but that’s the best that can be done with it.

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