Logiciel Libre

I’ve had an old Sharp Actius PC-MM20 I bought from EmperorLinux a while back. It’s a bit underpowered by today’s standards, but at less than two pounds it is still a handy coffee shop companion. EmperorLinux installed Fedora Core 2 at the factory and got the thing to boot, but sleep/hibernate, direct rendering (fast 3D) and wireless were always spotty at best. Lately the ethernet card stopped working.

I decided to try reinstalling the operating system it came packaged with (Windows XP, I think). But first I tried Ubuntu 7.04, just for fun. Most everything worked right out of the box! Sleep, hibernate, direct rendering, etc. For wireless I did have to use ndiswrapper, which took an extra half-hour to set up.

So there you go: this is hopefully the shortest “Linux-on-laptop” install guide ever. Insert CD, follow prompts, enjoy.