First version: January 2002
Updated: November 2004
and November 2006
Links:
Installing and using Linux on a Clevo (AJP Branded) 3220 Internet Laptop
My rather battered 3220 just before it became a network appliance!
The 3220 was sold in the UK by AJP Computers in the
UK for a few months in the Spring of 2001. A version
of this machine was also sold by Simply Computers as
far as I can recall.
The model I have is a 750MHz Pentium 3 machine with a
20GB hard drive, swappable CD-RW/Floppy drives and an
Advansys ALS300+ internal modem/sound card. The RAM
has been boosted to 256MB from the default 128MB.
Additionally, I've added a Prism2-based Netgear MA401
PCMCIA network card which I bought from Inmac. The laptop came
pre-installed with Windows ME which I quickly trashed
trying to make it suspend and resume reliably. I
started making it behave by installing Windows98
which improved stability no end but I quickly decided
it wasn't happy with Windows and tried it with
various flavours of GNU/Linux before settling on
Mandrake.
I didn't go for Mandrake for any reason other than I already used it on a desktop machine and was comfortable with it.
Installation of MandrakeLinux
I've so far installed Mandrake Linux on this laptop in versions from 7.2 up to the latest 10.2 (Mandriva 2005LE, in fact!) and all installations have been mostly trouble-free. Hardware support is far better than it was and even the sound side of the ALS300p chipset is supported by the paid-for OpenSound drivers. www.opensound.com.
Currently, I can grab a Mandrake CD ROM and install it on this machine expecting everything to work smoothly - until now. There were a few problems with Mandrake 10.1 - the keyboard stopped working under KDE3.3 (in /etc/rc5.d/ change S99local to S98local and S30dm to S99dm which maked dm load last and the keyboard work again!) and Suspend and Resume function has also stopped working!
I currently have it running Mandriva 2007 and it's fine although I don't usually run up the x-windows desktop.
Verdict
The 3220 is a good Linux machine - it's more reliable using Linux than it was with Windows ME and is generally trouble-free. I don't use it for day-to-day work any more - it's used for occasional note-taking and as a backup network appliance on my home network.
The view most people got of the 3220 - all the flaps broken off and that sticker was such a good fit that it just HAD to go on the lid!
The Future?
The MP-XP731 working on this very web page
Between Spring 2004 and Spring 2006 I lugged around a JVC MP-XP731 MiniNote. At only 1kg it's was less than half the weight and half the size of the 3220, the batteries last at least 5 hours and it has a wonderfully crisp, if small, 1024x600 pixel display.
It comes with Windows XP and, yes, the JVC works well with Linux. See how I got it to work HERE! I've now retired that laptop (It was part of a contract that finished) and I now use an IBM MiniNote T43. I haven't put Linux on it yet.... Let's wait for the warranty to run out first, eh?