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x41 tablet cf upgrade HELP? / super thread?

X20/X21, X30/X31, X40/X41 Series
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hempman
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Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2009 7:44 pm
Location: wickford, uk

x41 tablet cf upgrade HELP? / super thread?

#1 Post by hempman » Wed Sep 09, 2009 4:32 am

HI I've been thinking about upgrading my x41 for some months. I'm not a techie and this seems to get pretty involve.

I have a 300x adata cf, a single adaptor (sourced from pictures in these groups and ebay). i do not have a cdrw which would make things much easier. (having bough one on ebay a cheapie from china to discover it's not bootable)

I'm trying to achieve a Mac oS install / with xp or even Win 7. If anyone can give me some sound advice of the best way forward would be much appreciated.

Can I make the CF outside of the X41? Then insert , boot and bingo (sounds too easy), I had a network engineer friend who i pointed to the think wiki pages, he looked at it and ran away.

I've read mark's excellent thread, unfortunately the links to network booting seem to be dead.
I would like to upgrade becuase the X41 is brilliant (i never turn mine off to avoid the horrendous boot time) but the time has come to buy a netbook, a macbook, or an x41 tablet ssd and save a $1000

I don't have a much networking experience and my first foray into network booting was a wasted day. I've seen some threads on booting from a usb key.

Any points or help to get started would be a bonus. Thanks again.

Harryc
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Re: x41 tablet cf upgrade HELP? / super thread?

#2 Post by Harryc » Wed Sep 09, 2009 5:39 am


control
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Re: x41 tablet cf upgrade HELP? / super thread?

#3 Post by control » Wed Sep 09, 2009 11:11 pm

Win7 would probably be the easiest since you can install from thumbdrive.

hempman
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Location: wickford, uk

Re: x41 tablet cf upgrade HELP? / super thread?

#4 Post by hempman » Wed Sep 16, 2009 7:20 am

UPDATE

Thanks for the advice seems win 7 is the way to go for the easy option.

Just ordered a cheap bootable 16gb usb for £16.99 on ebay, hope this can do the job.

In the meantime and having spent to much time reading decided to play around.

I used a Fedora 9 installer to make a live cd, onto a adata 300x cf
using the links from thinkwiki

Next used WinGrub to make a bootable storage.

Shutdown,
pluged in CF card reader with cf card
restarted
pressed F12
changed boot to ffrom "generic USB adaptor"
booted first time.

Can't believe it, seems a bit slow but this is running via the a USB multi card reader which I think is knocking performance.

Found some instructions on how to install the tablet pen but haven't quite got my head around linux yet. Like where is the comand line, am I one second away from nuking my xp install (careful with that grub)?

So that's the update.
Federoa 9 runs okay from a USB card reader with a cf, it not nice and not the blindingly fast i hoped a cf would be, but it's a start and I haven't nuked my xp install yet.


Also I let fedora do the install work so next time I'll check what the File system is, think it's fat32. Had read somewhere linux on cf has some wierd name i can't remember.


Makes me think that kalway install can't be that difficult and I wish that I hadn't been a cheap skate and bought the addonic dual cf adapter, by the time I get this thing 100% CFs will be even cheaper and I could easily do a win 7, linux & mac.



If anyone has a really fast x41 tablet, what linux would you recommend? Ideally i'm looking something that snappy, uses the tablet and is not too complex to install.

Hopefully opting for google gears and breaking free of the MS grip will save space on the CF.

I'm wondering if I can ditch the backup win tablet xp idea, wholely remove the hardrive, contect the CF card to the pata cf adaptor, run it and install fedora 9 to the CF as a hard drive. Will this work? and bring things upto speed.


Sounds a bit to easy to me?

thanks for the input

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