Linux on the Zenith Z-Note 325L

Text or X

Useful Links:

This little laptop must have been something in its day:

Built-in 10baseT Ethernet (using an AAUI port to an external transceiver, supported by the Linux znet.c driver)
640x480 with 16 shades of grey
a whopping 80M hard drive
8M RAM
A built-in modem (Megahertz Corp. #Z396FM) that I haven't used (and probably won't...).
The BIOS has all of the nice options that even many modern laptops don't (of particular usefulness, the ability to disable power suspension upon lid closure).

This machine has a product identification number ZWL-3250-08, indicating that its 386 processor runs at 25 MHz, with the 80 M hard drive capacity. If I ever come across a spare FPU, there's a socket right next to the RAM slots (located under the sliding panel just opposite the funky, primitive LCD status panel above the keyboard) waiting for it.

Linux notes: The ethernet apparently only works with kernels 2.0.x, so I chose to floppy-install a minimal Slackware 3.9 distribution, which has a decently modern 2.0.37 kernel. Don't try to use the net install option - there isn't enough RAM to even run fdisk once the net-enabled kernel's loaded; in fact, I used the lowmem image for installation.

There's not much room left on the drive after installation, so I NFS mounted the X directories, thinking that, when it's not on the LAN, it could remain a fine little text box, and when connected, a little X-station. However, the performance of X is essentially painful with VGA, and the complete failure of the battery to hold a charge has led me to turn it into a "silent server": a quiet, unobtrusive 'net appliance' offering services like network printing to the LAN. In the near future, I intend to have it serving up NetSaint-like machine status pages and whatever else useful I can cram onto the remaining few megs.