(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I won 5 Dell E200 thin clients on ebat for $20+$20 shipping. These a 200 mhz, 64mb RAM (expandable to 256mb), and have 1 pc-card type II slot. The question is can it boot Puppy? They should be in, in a few days and though I would ask the question in advance. I learned it's pc-100 Ram, and I bough a 1 gb compact flash module with a pc-card adapter.
If anyone here knows about the client please post or PM me.


Thanks John

It really all depends on the BIOS and how you can configure it.

This is great service to the community you're doing, actually testing Puppy out in available thin clients. Let's see more, like Compaq, Sun, etc etc Am not in the US, but if I were, I'd love to do a sale of Puppy "thin PCs", which are thin clients loaded with Puppy !!! Or maybe we just call it "Puppy PC"

Hey, watch out! Please check the specs of the BIOS first, what type of devices it can actually use (example, does it read only 256 MB card devices, or higher?). You can always check the Dell site for the specifications.

I hope the BIOS chip is removable. I could try to get a chip from who ever make it to replace the Dell BIOS. I did this once with an HP that I was having problems with installing XP. I contacted Mr. BIOS , told them what I was doing and they sold me a off the shelf chip that was more compatible.

Well I had a set back.they came in without power supplies. The BIOS is pressed on the board. These Dell are made by Wyse. 64meg is also pressed on. So I'm proabilty stuck with 160meg of RAM.


EDIT: I was wrong. The BIOS chip is in a socket. I have to find a PS before I can start playing though.

The RAM of 160 MB is fine - after 70 MB for resident files, 90 MB will be available for running programs. The BIOS will be something else - but I guess it should be able to boot from the PC Card.

In the past I played about with a Wyse Winterm, trying to get it to do something other than look for a network and talk Citrix. No success I am afraid.
Yes, the model I tinkered with had a removable BIOS chip, but the only people who were prepared to provide an alternative BIOS wanted lots of folding stuff.
On that model, the BIOS could be re-flashed via the parallel port, and that did work. But the problem was that its native personality was radically different from a conventional PC, and trying to reverse engineer BIOS code was way beyond my competence.
The Wyse was solidly engineered and very useful in holding the door open for a while before it went for re-cycling.

Not much help I am afraid. .

Actually your experence is most helpful. I have not played with it yet but you have given me a start point. You story may also spark someone who can code the BIOS to get involved. Thanks for the insight. All thoughtful and honest information that is shared it of value. Just because it may not help on this project does not mean it can't be of use to someone else.
Keep the jices flowing.

The BIOS entry in the Wikipedia may be helpful. In any case it's educational.

Thanks for the link Flash. Not surprisingly there is an Open BIOS project. Now to find someone who can code the BIOS. I'll keep ya'll apprised

How about focusing on the power supply solution for Via EPIA motherboards?

This is the only missing component of a do-it-yourself PC, as the board and processor are available already.

I've been looking at ITX power supplies and/or cases from these guys http://www.morex.com.tw/ to build a via epia based router. I guess it should be good for puppypc as well

With all respect to everyone lending ideas to this project. The point for me was to take a very inexpenive and vey small computer and turn it into a 1 gb server. By letting it boot into ram you could take a low comsuption computer (less than 50w) and run a DSL/Cable server from home. In my case I want 5 of these at my house. One for each kid and two for me to experiment with. One would be solely to prefect an Indian Puppy (Puppy 1.04 stripped and running Apache 1.3) then make it available as a flavor of Puppy. I figure if I could make a freeware BIOS, and Indian Puppy available more people could have hobby servers expanding the common knowledge base. Make it where you configure the connection, place the files in the correct folders and simply boot and you would be on the net. If something goes wrong, just reboot. Even if it had to boot from a USB CDrom.
I like the ITX concept and like the NANO-ITX boards even more. This is expensive starting at $300 and going up. The thin clients I bought were $10 ea. w/200mhx chip. If this can work it will be less than $50 with a RAM upgrade.
My target is a bootable thin client with a 512mb to 1.0gb ATA-flash memory with 128mb min. of RAM. Run it with VNC so it only has a power cable. The thin client I am using now even has a mini-PCI. I am going to put a 802.11b card in if it works. My brother-in-law codes chips for TI in Dallas, Tx. I am hoping he will agree to help once I get the leg work done.
I don't even know if it will work, but I feel it's worth a try.
Feedback??

A server out of thin client? That is even more unexpected, as having a PC out of thin client is already unusual. Am with you there 100%!

After you do Apache, let's hope we can add PHP (even version 4) to add more interactivity - I already have simple Web publishing scripts using PHP.

Cheers!

Freesco is a firewall that will also run a server with the built in thttpd or with apache. It will boot from floppy, hd, cd, and compact flash card. True ts not puppy but it might do what you want, if you dont mind a cli system.

http://forums.freesco.org

Auda

Thank you I will check it out.