Thinkpads Forum

I have a maxed-out 760ED (104mb) that works with both a PCMCIA Wifi and PCMCIA USB adapters without problem. However although happily running W98SE, it is the last OS that can run on it - W2K will run but is a documented conflict with the PC Card drivers (was never resolved) so negates any useful productivity over W98.

Now as the last useful low end browser OPERA has stopped supporting XP even, it is not possible to browse any longer with the legacy versions Internet Ex, Google, Firefox etc. So, was wondering if there was a LINUX Distro that can allow PCMCIA -USB and WIFI and browse on a 760??

When I think of the hours I have spent over the years squeezing and shoe-horning and bludgeoning these legacy machine into the modern world, it breaks my heart to see them sitting there dormant and dumb!

Pick a Linux distro of your choice, do a minimal install and install just the bare minimum of stuff you want.

However, more and more distros are compiled for i686. Ultimately, some machines are just going to be left behind, so instead of pretending it's new, live like it's actually retro.

AntiX might be a good place to start.

Hmm... when I had my 760ED back in 1999 (I have the same now, but not the same system), I got the opportunity to use Windows 2000 Beta 3 and RC2. I was happy as the problimatic mwave card worked, and I didn't see any PCMCIA problems (plug and play, as opposed to plug and reboot in Windows NT). Thus, you could probably theoretically use a more modern wireless card, since that machine also supports Cardbus.

What is this documented problem you're referring to with PCMCIA drivers? For the most part, all drivers for that machine should be included with Windows 2000, so you really shouldn't need to install much of anything IBM-related.

In fact, it was RC2 that got me to move entirely from OS/2, because I found it to be super reliable on the 760ED.