Triple Threat Thinkpad

Eyecannon · 02-22-2004

Finally got it in full working order (things take a long time to compile on 75Mhz of 486 powar, especially when they don't work the first, second, and tenth times). I'm running Debian with the 2.4.24 kernel. Running both my ORiNOCO Gold and my Senao 2511 EXT2. This setup was mainly to play with kismet with dual cards, which is quite fun and quite useful (staggering channel hopping, or scanning with one card, connecting with the other). The final thing I have to sort out is GPS, since this laptop does not have a built-in serial port (it has an extender thingy that really sucks and ruins portability, and it can't do USB since the hardware is too ancient). I am on the market for a PCMCIA serial card, but they are laughably expensive and I keep losing my ebay auctions. Unfortunately, if I send the GPS thru PCMCIA, I can only use one wireless card.... c'est la vie

PICS!

renderman · 02-22-2004

Where'd you get the lid sticker, that rocks!

Eyecannon · 02-22-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by renderman
Where'd you get the lid sticker, that rocks!

My girl made it for me

atpaw · 03-07-2004

Huzzah, Thinkpad!

I've been toying with NetStumbler on my 701C, which technically should have died years ago. Originally a 701CS, it has been rebuilt with parts from a gutted C, and the system board replaced with an overclocked model (133MHz AMD @ 33MHz bus), and a 64 meg RAM chip slotted in.

Battery life is now "brief" (1hr 20 at best), but the extra grunt is worth it so long as you don't wander too far from a powerpoint.

How long will you keep your unit alive for, do you think?

AP

Eyecannon · 03-07-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by atpaw
Huzzah, Thinkpad!

I've been toying with NetStumbler on my 701C, which technically should have died years ago. Originally a 701CS, it has been rebuilt with parts from a gutted C, and the system board replaced with an overclocked model (133MHz AMD @ 33MHz bus), and a 64 meg RAM chip slotted in.

Battery life is now "brief" (1hr 20 at best), but the extra grunt is worth it so long as you don't wander too far from a powerpoint.

How long will you keep your unit alive for, do you think?

AP

Well, I'm still working on it... on getting the PCMCIA serial card working right. Mine is a 701CS btw

atpaw · 03-12-2004

*grins* So I noticed from the LCD panel. How did you get linux onto it, incidentally? We've tried a few times with my one, but haven't had much luck...

Gentoo compiler on a friend's laptop being a smartarse and putting P4 code in the kernel when we asked specifically for 486 code. Old Deb CD having been damaged over time and therefore unusable. Suse for some reason not being able to load drivers for the PCMCIA ethernet card from a boot floppy.

Face it, linux hates me.

peekitty · 03-12-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by atpaw
*grins* So I noticed from the LCD panel. How did you get linux onto it, incidentally? We've tried a few times with my one, but haven't had much luck...

I've said it so often that people just ignore me, but once more: Slackware via an NFS share. NFS is easier to set up than Samba (not that you can install from it, but who knows NFS anymore?) I've performed this kind of install on several old laptops and it usually works well.

Eyecannon · 03-12-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by peekitty
I've said it so often that people just ignore me, but once more: Slackware via an NFS share. NFS is easier to set up than Samba (not that you can install from it, but who knows NFS anymore?) I've performed this kind of install on several old laptops and it usually works well.

The slackware bootdisk floppies wouldn't recognize my PCMCIA NIC, but Debian's did, so I did a Debian internet install (even cooler than Slack's NFS install IMO).

kleptophobiac · 03-12-2004

I have a compaq LTE Elite 4/75C

It's a monster with a 75MHz 486 with 24MB of RAM. I upgraded the original HDD with one from a dead Dell Latitude. 4.7GB.

It really made the project possible. I created 6 partitions:

/dev/hda1 - / [2GB]
/dev/hda2 - (slackware disc1) [652MB]
/dev/hda3 - /usr/src [1GB]
/dev/hda5 - /root [500MB]
/dev/hda6 - /var [400MB]
/dev/hda6 - swap [remainder]

Anyway, used a 2.5" IDE adapter and an external USB drive to load on the slackware data from another machine.

I proceeded to install using bare.i, install.1, and install.2.

Afterwards, I used distcc to speed up compiling. the 2.6.3 kernel took about two hours using several computers. The laptop became the bottle neck, it could not serve files fast enough for my 6GHz cluster.

Too bad I broke the NIC drivers, and had to compile again (four freakishly long days to compile).

Yeah, it's been fun.

Eyecannon · 03-12-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by kleptophobiac
I have a compaq LTE Elite 4/75C

It's a monster with a 75MHz 486 with 24MB of RAM. I upgraded the original HDD with one from a dead Dell Latitude. 4.7GB.

It really made the project possible. I created 6 partitions:

/dev/hda1 - / [2GB]
/dev/hda2 - (slackware disc1) [652MB]
/dev/hda3 - /usr/src [1GB]
/dev/hda5 - /root [500MB]
/dev/hda6 - /var [400MB]
/dev/hda6 - swap [remainder]

Anyway, used a 2.5" IDE adapter and an external USB drive to load on the slackware data from another machine.

I proceeded to install using bare.i, install.1, and install.2.

Afterwards, I used distcc to speed up compiling. the 2.6.3 kernel took about two hours using several computers. The laptop became the bottle neck, it could not serve files fast enough for my 6GHz cluster.

Too bad I broke the NIC drivers, and had to compile again (four freakishly long days to compile).

Yeah, it's been fun.

I tried to use distcc, but I couldn't get it to work right.

kleptophobiac · 03-12-2004

what went wrong? maybe I can help.

DWJames · 03-29-2004

Nice setup Eyecannon. Is that a Senao card on the underneat the Lucent?

I also noticed that you had a homemade antenna in the shot, too. Do you have any more (maybe different designs) besides that?

Eyecannon · 03-29-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by DWJames
Nice setup Eyecannon. Is that a Senao card on the underneat the Lucent?

I also noticed that you had a homemade antenna in the shot, too. Do you have any more (maybe different designs) besides that?

Yes that's a Senao (Engenius actually). I have made probably 10 cantennas of various materials, diameters, and lengths... though the very first one I made is still my best!

I've also messed around with modeling cantennas in NEC, so I have some other designs to try out as well, though I have very little free time lately.

kleptophobiac · 04-11-2004

I use a 6db omni suction cupped to the top of my car. The mirror effect of the metal of the roof should bring it to 9db. It is very nice not having to give my wrist RSI, and still have superior "resolving" power.

I'm building (yes, building) a ~250mW bidi amp for wardriving. Too bad I blew out the paired amp dots... now I need to buy a new set.

Eyecannon · 04-12-2004

Some new pics of both my laptops fully working, using a simple serial splitter so both can use a single GPS!

02-22-2004	#1 (permalink)
Eyecannon Ward River Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Santa Monix Posts: 679	Triple Threat Thinkpad Finally got it in full working order (things take a long time to compile on 75Mhz of 486 powar, especially when they don't work the first, second, and tenth times). I'm running Debian with the 2.4.24 kernel. Running both my ORiNOCO Gold and my Senao 2511 EXT2. This setup was mainly to play with kismet with dual cards, which is quite fun and quite useful (staggering channel hopping, or scanning with one card, connecting with the other). The final thing I have to sort out is GPS, since this laptop does not have a built-in serial port (it has an extender thingy that really sucks and ruins portability, and it can't do USB since the hardware is too ancient). I am on the market for a PCMCIA serial card, but they are laughably expensive and I keep losing my ebay auctions. Unfortunately, if I send the GPS thru PCMCIA, I can only use one wireless card.... c'est la vie PICS! __________________ No, officer, YOU are under arrest! http://eyecannon.com/wardrive.html Last edited by Eyecannon : 02-22-2004 at 08:44 PM.

02-22-2004	#2 (permalink)
renderman Drunken Stumbler Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Anywhere but Utah Posts: 1,802	Where'd you get the lid sticker, that rocks! __________________ Never drink anything larger than your head! Scaramental Wine Taster for the Church Of WiFi Buy our books! "I reject your reality, and substitute my own!" – Adam Savage CoWF WPA Hash Tables

03-29-2004	#12 (permalink)
DWJames Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 10	Nice setup Eyecannon. Is that a Senao card on the underneat the Lucent? I also noticed that you had a homemade antenna in the shot, too. Do you have any more (maybe different designs) besides that? __________________ www.DailyWireless.com Your source for wireless industry news, research, insight, and analysis.

04-12-2004	#15 (permalink)
Eyecannon Ward River Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Santa Monix Posts: 679	Some new pics of both my laptops fully working, using a simple serial splitter so both can use a single GPS! __________________ No, officer, YOU are under arrest! http://eyecannon.com/wardrive.html

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03-07-2004	#4 (permalink)
atpaw Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Newcastle, Australia Posts: 2	Huzzah, Thinkpad! I've been toying with NetStumbler on my 701C, which technically should have died years ago. Originally a 701CS, it has been rebuilt with parts from a gutted C, and the system board replaced with an overclocked model (133MHz AMD @ 33MHz bus), and a 64 meg RAM chip slotted in. Battery life is now "brief" (1hr 20 at best), but the extra grunt is worth it so long as you don't wander too far from a powerpoint. How long will you keep your unit alive for, do you think? AP

03-12-2004	#6 (permalink)
atpaw Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Newcastle, Australia Posts: 2	grins So I noticed from the LCD panel. How did you get linux onto it, incidentally? We've tried a few times with my one, but haven't had much luck... Gentoo compiler on a friend's laptop being a smartarse and putting P4 code in the kernel when we asked specifically for 486 code. Old Deb CD having been damaged over time and therefore unusable. Suse for some reason not being able to load drivers for the PCMCIA ethernet card from a boot floppy. Face it, linux hates me.

03-12-2004	#9 (permalink)
kleptophobiac Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 310	I have a compaq LTE Elite 4/75C It's a monster with a 75MHz 486 with 24MB of RAM. I upgraded the original HDD with one from a dead Dell Latitude. 4.7GB. It really made the project possible. I created 6 partitions: /dev/hda1 - / [2GB] /dev/hda2 - (slackware disc1) [652MB] /dev/hda3 - /usr/src [1GB] /dev/hda5 - /root [500MB] /dev/hda6 - /var [400MB] /dev/hda6 - swap [remainder] Anyway, used a 2.5" IDE adapter and an external USB drive to load on the slackware data from another machine. I proceeded to install using bare.i, install.1, and install.2. Afterwards, I used distcc to speed up compiling. the 2.6.3 kernel took about two hours using several computers. The laptop became the bottle neck, it could not serve files fast enough for my 6GHz cluster. Too bad I broke the NIC drivers, and had to compile again (four freakishly long days to compile). Yeah, it's been fun.

03-12-2004	#11 (permalink)
kleptophobiac Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 310	what went wrong? maybe I can help.

04-11-2004	#14 (permalink)
kleptophobiac Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 310	I use a 6db omni suction cupped to the top of my car. The mirror effect of the metal of the roof should bring it to 9db. It is very nice not having to give my wrist RSI, and still have superior "resolving" power. I'm building (yes, building) a ~250mW bidi amp for wardriving. Too bad I blew out the paired amp dots... now I need to buy a new set.