[sf-lug] ThinkPad model i1410, machine type 2611

[Rick Moen]

[Correcting the subject header, as "AA-D296F" is _not_ a model number,
but rather Alex's laptop's serial number, and the Subject also contained
other errors.]

Quoting Asheesh Laroia (asheesh at asheesh.org):

> It's best done using another laptop.  You can look up the IBM Maintenance 
> Manual (that might not be the proper term) for your laptop and read their 
> instructions on removing the hard drive.  Then read the instructions for a 
> different laptop on how to upgrade the hard drive, and plug the old 
> machine's laptop into the other laptop.
> 
> Then, just do a regular install.

However, I refuse to believe that an x86 distribution with an
installation kernel compiled for i586 or lower cannot install directly 
onto a ThinkPad i1410.  Therefore, it might be a lot better for Alex
to simply bring the machine to an installation event and show precisely
what's wrong.  It might be something easy to fix or work around.

> I know Fedora too has a system for avoiding over-specialization of the 
> install.
> 
> I've seen Windows go nuts on changing the hardware, but Linux 
> distributions don't have anything to do with Windows.

RHEL can have problems in that the initrd includes only drivers for the
hardware found at installation time, and you'd want to rebuild that.
(Logically, I expect Fedora would do likewise.)  It's really handy to
have a live CD handy for such situations:  If all else fails, boot the
CD, mount the HD's filesystems, chroot into the normal root filesystem,
and fix your kernel/initrd/bootloader.

> > What about just getting a new CDROM for the ThinkPad? Do you think
> > that's doable and perhaps the way to go? Is it any easier to remove a
> > CDROM than a hard drive? Also, would replacements be available?
> 
> It's possible to replace the drive, but generally not useful because the 
> model of CD-ROM will probably be the same - you'll be replacing it with a 
> clone of itself!  So if the drive is working less well than other siblings 
> of its, like for example a hard drive with bad sectors or a CD reader that 
> can't read any CDs, doing the switch might be useful; if not, it won't be 
> useful.

I'm not sure I understand the question.  Is Alex assuming that the CD
drive is funky and unreliable?  Is there any direct evidence of this?

> A more interesting approach would be strictly net-booting and doing the 
> install that way, but I don't have much experience with it.  The plus side 
> is that it's (usually) easy to look up if a machine supports doing that.

A Pentium MMX-equipped ThinkPad?  Very likely does support PXE
netbooting.  Would have to be enabled in the BIOS Setup.