[COLUG] Seeking recommendations for Linux distro for ancient laptop

[William Yang]

Ethan Dicks wrote:

> I am not in a position to confirm nor deny such rumors.  I will not
> likely be replacing this with a *new* laptop, as I still require
> features such as serial ports (not USB-serial dongles), parallel
> ports, and PCMCIA/CARDBUS slots.

Tough requirement.  There are still heaps of PCMCIA/CARDBUS + Serial port 
laptops out there (because serial ports are useful)... but parallel ports?
You may need to go for the docking station or port replicator to get that.

I recently replaced an ancient P3/700Mhz 320MB RAM Compaq Presario 1800XL4 
with a Dell Precision M65 (Core 2 Duo 1.86Ghz, 2 GB RAM) laptop -- my 
requirements sound like they may be similar to yours.  The only way I could 
get a parallel port was through a docking station or port replicator, but 
that didn't bother me that much, as I only use a parallel printer on the 
port... and I don't tend to lug it around. ;-).

However, it does have a real serial port and a type 1/type 2 PCMCIA/Cardbus 
interface.  Along with most things I'd need integrated (though I still 
don't have the modem working -- some kind of integrated modem within the 
sound system, not supported using kernel drivers (and I don't want to 
complicate management of the system by going to non-kernel alsa drivers 
(which may support the modem), because I tend to 'emerge -u world' on 
gentoo. ;-).

It's getting hard to buy a real "desktop replacement" laptop that's 
actually portable, affordable, and can be readily coaxed into running your 
favorite flavor of Linux.....

	-Bill
-- 
William Yang
wyang at gcfn.net