I have a fujitsu stylistic 2300 with a 4 gb hard drive. I would love to install a bigger, faster hard drive in it. I know there are some issues with the tablet's bios but I am wondering, is it easier to install a big hard drive in a little old tablet if windows 98 is the OS or if some distro of Linux is the OS? I am hoping/planning on putting a version of Linux on this tablet - maybe slackware? I don't need processing speed but I would like more real estate to store stuff - I am a pack rat at heart - I would also like a machine that boots up faster, i.e. a 7200 rpm drive.

T

physical hard drive height comes to mind, also, faster hard drives produce more heat.

nice looking device though. have you gotten linux running on it at all yet ?

Not yet...I am in the middle of building a loft bed now so it must wait its turn. I think I will do the OS conversion first, then consider the hard drive. Will Linux give me a suspend mode with a tablet pc? I have been told that 98se will not. If I had a suspend mode that was easy on electricity it might be good enough. I already have a 40 GB notebook harddrive - still 4200 rpm - installed in an external USB case. Will Linux recognize this device?

T

oh, you are debating between windows98 and linux, and some of your concerns are will the os recognize the hard drive size, and will the os have suspend to disk capability ?

linux does have 'suspend to hd', i am not sure how it works though. for my experience there is alot of research and tinkering with the os in order to make it work. if you like playing with your computer, then linux sounds like a fun project for your machine, with no guarantees about how functional you will be able to get your machine. (due to software support or personal frustration level). Not to discourage, just my personal opinion.

I would say there will be no problems with linux recognizing your 40gb hard drive. Will the HD fit in your tablet though ?, the things are made in different heights.

Thanks for the feedback...there are a couple of aspects to my question. First, I understand that P1's were not made to handle much bigger than a 6 GB hard drive, more or less. I know it is difficult to get the BIOS to recognize a larger hard drive. The first part of my question is "is it easier to get the BIOS to recognize a larger hard drive if you are using Linux or Windows?" The second question "does Linux support a slumber mode?"

T

i don't know about processor speed affecting hard drive size, or about an operating system affecting the bios. sorry.

regarding 'slumber mode' -

http://softwaresuspend.berlios.de/

i believe this is part of the 2.6.x kernel now. good luck.

You don't need to worry about the HDD size limit of the BIOS.

Linux ignores the BIOS when it address hardware. So if you had, say, a 40 GB drive, and your BIOS maxes out at 6 GB, Linux would still recognize it as 40 GB.

The only limitation is that the kernel must reside within the portion of the disk that your BIOS detects. This can be assured by making a "/boot" partition before all the other partitions.