With the End of life for Windows XP it was time to replace the OS on a Panasonic CF-W2 ToughBook laptop.
The CF-W2 is well designed, but the laptop is low on memory. I therefore chose to install Debian with the XFCE window manager. Also I hadn’t used it for several years and was interested to give it a go.
The general specification for the laptop is given in the table below.
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| CPU | • Intel® Pentium® M Processor 753 ULV:
|
| Storage & Memory |
|
| Display |
|
| Audio |
|
| Expansion Slots |
|
| Keyboard & Input |
|
| Interface |
|
| Wireless Lan |
|
I have found that the SD card hardware installed in the CG-w2 is not supported in Linux. An old list of supported card hardware reflected this. But I was interested to see if this status had changed.
Whilst running Windows XP I had been using one of the Realtek USB Wi-Fi dongles. It worked better than the built-in Wi-Fi hardware.
I hadn’t used the XFCE desktop environment for many years and decided that given its lower memory requirements it would be more suited to this laptop.
I downloaded a copy of the Debian XFCE installation CD.
The installation went well, with no unexpected hiccups.
For ease I wanted to be able to connect to the laptop from my main computer using SSH. This allows configuration files to be easily copied over: the sources.list file for apt and the config files for the Shorewall firewall for example.
The SSH client and server were added. This required the reinsertion of the installation CD.
apt-get install ssh
I followed the recommendation to prevent root login.
Able to login from my main computer I modified the sources.list file for apt to include the experimental repository and removed the CD from the list of sources.
deb http://mirror.ox.ac.uk/debian/ testing main contrib non-free deb-src http://mirror.ox.ac.uk/debian/ testing main contrib non-free deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free deb-src http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free deb http://deb-multimedia.org testing main deb-src http://deb-multimedia.org testing main #experimental repository for icedove, iceweasel deb http://mirror.ox.ac.uk/debian/ experimental main contrib non-free deb http://mirror.ox.ac.uk/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free deb-src http://mirror.ox.ac.uk/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
To action the change apt is updated:
apt-get update
Following the update a dist-upgrade to account for packages added since the build of the installation CD and the change to the list of repositories.
apt-get dist-upgrade
Debian multimedia repository requires the addition of the package debian-keyring to resolve the error no_pubkey 07dc563d1f41b907
Graphics
To get details of graphics driver
lspci |grep -i vga
giving:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02)
I made no changes.
Networking
To add support for the Intel wireless device
apt-get install firmware-ipw2x00 wireless-tools
modprobe -r ipw2200 ; modprobe ipw2200
To handle one of the small Realtek wi-fi dongles I added
apt-get install firmware-realtek
Additional Packages
I also added the following:
- flashplugin-nonfree
- docky
- ssh & fail2ban
- tcpdump, nmap & iptraf
Living with XFCE
Compared with an install of KDE on a second CF-W2 I have found XFCE to be responsive.
Docky is prone to disappearing, resolved by clicking on the Docky icon under Application menu > Applications.
Subsequently, I installed a copy of WordPress and ran a development version of a client’s website.
Also with a view to improving the speed of the laptop I tried replacing the hard drive with an SD card and adaptor. Unfortunately this was not recognised.
