Handtops, UMPC - Flybooks and Linux

09/19/04 + arcatan

Hello! Flybooks seem to be great laptops and I'm really considering about buying such.

But does anyone here know if Flybooks support Linux? I have heard that they are shipping Flybooks with Lycoris pre-installed, but in Finland Flybooks are shipped without any OS, and I would like to use my favourite os, Gentoo Linux. So do you know if the drivers and etc. are available for all Linux distros?

09/29/04 + enricong

there's an auction on ebay, its over $1700 already.

Interesting since you could do "buy it now" for 1700 last week and there were zero bids

09/30/04 + arcatan

OK! I just got my flybook with Windows XP home preinstalled (strange, Verkkokauppa.com says they ship these without any os)... Now I'm going to see if I can install Gentoo Linux.

09/30/04 + Chekote

Submit review!

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09/30/04 + arcatan

I'll do that when I've used this some time. But it seems that Flybook doesn't want to boot from my Linux CDs... I dont know if it's a problem with my external Iomega CD-RW drive or with my settings. It sounds like it is reading the cds and then it flashes text Dialogue and says Hit F9 and boots Windows

09/30/04 + Chekote

Have you checked the bios settings for the Boot Device Order?

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09/30/04 + arcatan

Oh yes. Only reaction if change boot device order is when I disable the Hard disks option, then it says
"Operation System not found". It doesn't react to network bootting' or removable devices or cd-rom drives.

09/30/04 + adams

Sounds like the cdrom that you have isnt bootable.

I bought this one from newegg and it boots just fine...
link

whenever there is a os disk in the drive, it says "press any key to boot from cd" just like anyother computer. So if i were you, i would just try another cd rom.

09/30/04 + enricong

ahh, now I want one :D, but I'm still trying to decide between a JVC Interlink 7310 and the flybook.
I'm tempted to get both and sell one of them on ebay, hehe. But I can't be sure that I'd beable to sell it.

10/01/04 + arcatan

adams said: "Sounds like the cdrom that you have isnt bootable."

I tried the same cd-rom drive with same Gentoo LiveCD on my another computer, and it worked just fine.

edit: Do you know if it's possible to do network boot using PXE?

10/01/04 + illucid

should be... Just enable it in the BIOS.

10/01/04 + arcatan

But how? I have it in my boot order list, but it seems that does nothing.

10/02/04 + adams

yea, im pretty sure that a diff brand of cd rom will work, with the sony u50 there is a whole list of drives that wont boot with the u50. maybe you were just unlucky and got one that wont boot. Try a diff brand cd rom.

10/08/04 + kickus

I recently got a FlyBook also.. and I've also experienced same kind of problems with booting from an external cd-station. I managed to bootup from cd by clicking on/off the Bluetooth or WLAN. There seems to be some kind of problems with the integrated usb-hub?

I've now installed a debian, but I still have some irq-problems.
My 2.6.8.1-kernel locks up (quite late - i think during "/etc/init.d/hotplug start") with the message

usb 2-1: control timeout on ep0out
ohci_hcd 0000:00:0b.1: Unlink after no-IRQ? Different ACPI or APIC settings may help.

And the 2.4.26-1 which was installed by the cd I used, also locks at bootup, but with some kind of firewire-problem?! It hangs at same place with the following message:

IRQ routing conflict for 00:0c.1, have irq 11, want irq 10
ohci1394_0: OHCI-1394 1.1 (PCI): IRQ=[11] MMIO=[e8018000-e80187ff] Max Packet=[2048]

However, I managed to pass the problem in 2.4.26 by pressing Ctrl-C just in the moment when hotplug starts up, and it will continue with the remaining bootup..

Any solutions / suggestions for my problems are appreciated!

10/09/04 + diJenerate

@kickus

I believe that is a kernel module problem with some USB chipsets. I have seen the same problem on desktops with kernel 2.6.* with some usb chipsets and device combinations. The absolute solution I have found is to disable the loading of the usb hotplug module and mount your usb devices manually until the patch is available.

my $0.02
diJenerate

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10/09/04 + kickus

I got it up and running removing ACPI from kernel. Before that I tried to turn acpi off using boot-params, but that didn't help. Now it boots up fine, perhaps I should try to use APM instead.

USB seems to work quite fine with 2.6.8.1, I should now try to configure Bluetooth, GPRS, WLAN, touchscreen.. Oh - that will take quite a while for me. :-/

Another weird surprising problem I got: the trackpoint seems to be mounted upside-down.. I'll have to get the axis swapped somehow.